


Stitched Up

by bewildered



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:12:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5219267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewildered/pseuds/bewildered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something goes horribly, horribly awry with Willow’s ensoulment spell, and Angel’s soul finds an unexpected home – in his dirty laundry. Read now the tale of a Sock with a Soul; it’s on a mission to help the helpless, and it’s starting with Spike and Buffy. </p><p>Departs canon forever during Becoming Part Two. Has about the nuanced characterization one should expect from an Ensouled Sock AU. As seems to be my preferred genre now, this is a shameless smutty Spuffy farce, once I get that pesky canon drama out of the way. </p><p>Written for the 10th anniversary Seasonal Spuffy on LJ (Nov 2015).</p><p>Warnings: By the laws of CA, Buffy is under the age of consent (18) at the beginning of this fic, and will be for many more months. Spike doesn’t care (he’s evil) and Buffy doesn’t care (she’s a teenager who wants to be treated like an adult) and I don't care. She’ll be 18 before long. There will be sexual situations, bad language, character death (or characters-sucked-into-a-demon-dimension, which is close enough), and plain old explicit sex. Also an ensouled sock. If you keep reading, don’t blame me. </p><p>Temp Sprusilla/Bangel - nothing explicit, but given where this fic veers off, some mooning is inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Becoming (a Sock)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to feliciacraft, who wrote a post on Tumblr that was the initial inspiration for this plot, and to restfield and the_moonmoth, who kept making it worse, until we ended up with this fine and glorious adventure. Tumblr is a scary, scary place. More thanks to the_moonmoth for her thorough beta-read.
> 
> Chapter 1 contains some dialogue and events from “Becoming, Part 2” written by Joss Whedon. Thanks to Alexander Thompson at Buffyworld for the transcript.

Spike watched darkly as Angel directed his minions in preparations for the ritual that would send the world into hell. _Spike’s_ minions, they were, or had been, and while it was really the least of the indignities he had suffered through his months of recuperation – how the underlings that used to scurry in fear at Spike’s orders now bowed and scraped before Captain Hairgel – he took a moment to reflect on how satisfying it was going to be when the slayer mowed through them on her way to taking down Angel, leaving their dust floating on the breeze. Served the disloyal buggers right.

Drusilla was dancing to the fey music in her head, a dreamy smile on her face as she twirled around Acathla, and Spike’s eyes were drawn to her. She danced with her whole self, she always had, dark expression flowing from her flashing eyes all the way to the sharp, polished tips of her fingers – that had been an inspired present, turning that nail technician with the gift for French manicures – and he couldn’t keep from devouring the sight of her, hunger like a cannonball in the pit of his stomach. God, she was everything. _Everything_.

He was hard, with lust and gleeful anticipation of Angel’s death, and he adjusted the drape of his duster to hide it, because it wouldn’t do for anyone to suspect that his shattered spine had finally healed, and so well that only the tiniest tingle in his toes remained as a reminder of the severed nerves. Nobody could know until the last minute, when he smote Angel down like the fucking bug he was. That was going to be fun, that was. He wished he had time to set up a fucking candid camera, maybe two or three, so that later on he could replay the moment from every angle, see the look on Angel’s face when he bashed him on the head, because unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be able to see it when it actually happened.

That was the problem with stabbing someone in the back: not being able to look them in the eye when you did it.

Drusilla danced over to him then, crooning one of her own special songs, one of the lullabies she had composed for Miss Edith. She swooped around behind him, tracing a sensual hand over his chest. “Isn’t it delicious, my sweet knight?” She encircled his neck with her arms from behind, pressing her cheek to his; he closed his eyes and breathed her in, every bit of her, sweet sweet death. “What a lovely party we shall have!”

Spike made himself sound bored, even as he wanted to fling her to the floor, show her a _real_ party. “Of course, pet.”

Drusilla’s fingernails scraped across his chest, and he hissed in lust and fury, turning his face away, because it had been so long, so bloody long, and even now he could tell she didn’t want him, that she had eyes only for her precious Angel. She was crooning her mesmerizing song again, in his ear, and finally she spoke, her voice gentle and soft, almost sweet. “I shall miss you, my Lancelot.”

He looked at her then, sharply. “Not going anywhere, love,” he muttered, glancing sidelong at Angel, who was broodingly regarding Acathla, like the drama king he was. Fucking wanker.

Drusilla laughed then, brightly, and danced away, stepping between Angel and Acathla to caress the hilt of the sword that protruded from the chest of the grotesque statue. “’Who so pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England,’” she intoned, then burst out in a fit of giggles.

“Leave it, Dru,” Angel growled, taking her by the shoulders and setting her aside. She laughed and danced on as if she hadn’t been interrupted, eyes closed as she wove in and out of the bustling workers.

Spike watched every step.

It had been too long, but he was finally through with waiting.

It was time to take back what was his.

***

Buffy crept into the mansion silently, sword ready in her hand. She could hear Angel’s voice, speaking some sort of ritual words, and she closed her eyes briefly, hoping against hope that she had come in time, that she could stop the ritual before it began, that Giles was still alive, that Xander would find him and they would escape, that she could still save the day. It hurt, it hurt so much to hear Angel speak, to hear his dear voice without his soul behind it, but she was a big girl now, she had died and lived and loved and lost and lost and _lost_ , and she was going to do what it took to save the world.

Then she would go somewhere private and cry. A lot.

She crept into the room, eyes fixed on the stupid-looking minion who was probably supposed to be standing guard but was instead watching Angel as he did something near the statue – _please, please let me not be too late!_ – and she swung her sword in a smooth arc, beheading the vampire quickly and silently.

As his dust settled to the ground, she looked up at Angel, who seemed more annoyed than angry. Well, she would change that.

“Hello, lover,” she purred.

***

Willow looked at the dot-matrix printout in front of her, trying not to shake. She still felt weak, but she was full of resolve, and she was going to cast this spell if it killed her. For Buffy. Even though she felt all ooky in her stomach, kind of excited and terrified and sick all at once, at just the thought of taking on a spell this intense, at the thought of all the things that could go wrong. Buffy was totally worth the risk. Buffy had been too unhappy for too long, wracked with guilt and misery over Angel, and she just wasn’t supposed to be unhappy, not when everyone else was all coupley and googly-eyed. Well, not Giles, but there was only so much Willow could do.

Cordelia was almost done setting out the candles and rune stones around the Orb of Thessulah, and Willow heaved a deep breath. Oz leaned in to press his forehead against hers; she could feel herself calming just from the contact, like Oz’s perpetual mellow was flowing through her like cool rainwater.

“You sure about this, babe?” he murmured, stroking her hand.

Willow nodded. “Mostly sure. I’d feel better if we had time to get some sort of binding agent from Angel, you know, like some hair from his hairbrush, to narrow down the aim, but we don’t have time for that, and the odds of the spell working are still really good. Plus, I don’t know if he even has a hairbrush.” She wasn’t going to think too hard about the things Giles had said about spells rebounding and energies going wild and all the other things that could go wrong. She wasn’t going to let things go wrong. Magic was like school, right? Know the right words and plug in the right data, and you’d get an A on the test. Willow might suck at fashion and popularity and conversation and all the things that high school students actually cared about, but she was really, really good at tests.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Oz’s voice sounded a shade worried, which meant he was totally scared; Willow squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Don’t worry. I want to do this.” Willow met Cordy’s impatient gaze. “Are we ready?”

Cordelia held out her wrapped bundle of sage. “Stinky herbs are a go.” She lit it, glancing nervously at the hospital room’s sprinkler head as it started to smoke. “How sensitive are the smoke detectors in here? My hair looks really good today, especially considering all the fleeing.”

Oz looked down at the book in front of him. “Did I mention I didn’t take Latin?”

Willow smiled, hoping she looked serene and confident. “Y-you don’t have to understand it. You just have to say it. I hope.” Okay, the stutter didn’t help, but she really was confident. Really.

“Right.”

Willow cast her handful of rune stones and began the Ritual of Restoration.

***

Spike felt the impact of iron against dead flesh shiver up his arm, and it felt glorious, seeing Angel fall before him; he reveled in it, striking again and again, a blow for each time Angel had sneered or mocked him, for each time he had fondled Dru in front of him. The blows fell harder and harder: one for every time Angel had fucked Dru right in front of him, every single bloody time Angel had tried to prove that Dru didn’t belong to Spike, had never belonged to Spike, not for the hundred years he had served her and loved her and given her his whole self.

“Painful, isn’t it?” he grunted, hearing ribs crack, trying to count them to make sure he didn’t miss any.

He had barely made it to three when Dru leaped at him, whimpering, the force taking him down to the floor.

Spike caught a fleeting glimpse of the slayer taking out another traitor minion as he rolled to his feet, before Drusilla filled his vision. She was furious, glorious, incandescent with rage; he thought dizzily that she had never been so beautiful.

“I don't want to hurt you, baby,” he said cajolingly. She slammed him into the wall by his throat, and he shuddered with desire, before steeling himself. Later, he would let her unleash her fury on him, when they were safely away from this fucking town. Later.

He punched her in the face. “Doesn’t mean I won’t,” he shrugged.

Drusilla whipped her head back up to glare at him, eyes burning. She was muttering under her breath; Spike could barely catch the words.

“‘Now I have warned thee of thy vain glory and of thy pride…’” she hissed, circling him. “’…That thou hast many times erred against thy Maker. Beware of everlasting pain, for of all earthly knights I have most pity of thee, for I know well thou hast not thy peer of any earthly sinful man.’” She lunged at him, talons clawing lines across his cheek, then downing him with a punch. He grinned as he fell. That was his precious girl, right there. Beauty and death and poetry all at once.

“Dipping into the Malory, are we, pet?” he laughed out as he rolled back up to face her.

There was a sudden flash of light, blinding, and Spike turned his head to see Angel standing before Acathla, sword in hand. The King of Pain, finally worthy. _Bugger_.

Drusilla’s smile was radiant as she watched Angel spin the sword jauntily. “Oh… Here he comes,” she crooned reverently.

Eyes only on Angel.

Jaw clenched, Spike stepped up behind her, hooking his arm around her neck in a chokehold. He was good at this bit, had over a century of practice capturing pretty presents to bring home to his dark princess. She wouldn’t break free, he was sure.

They were going to be together again, the way things used to be.

***

Buffy felt numb.

Covered in the dust of Angel’s minions, she faced him down, sword against sword, trading quips and blows, blood for blood, but deep inside she felt dead, because she knew that she had already lost, the moment Angel pulled that sword free. _Nothing left to lose_ , she had told Whistler, but there had been one thing, one thing left to her, she knew now.

Hope.

She knew the story of Pandora’s box, the box that held all the world’s ills, misery and pain and death – she wondered now, as her leaden arm parried and lunged, if maybe that box had been something like Acathla, releasing terrors from hell – and at the very bottom of the box, Hope. When she was young, she had felt bad, that Hope was stuck in the nasty box with all those horrible things, but now she thought maybe she understood, because Hope seemed like a nice thing when you had it – until it went away, and you were left with nothing.

Buffy had nothing left.

Angel disarmed her then, flinging her backwards into something made of hard stone, and she grunted at the impact, scrabbling backwards as he advanced on her for the kill.

She closed her eyes. Waiting.

***

Drusilla finally went limp in Spike’s arms, and he hoisted her up, like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold – and that was rather true, he was taking his sweet princess off to their new life, blissful togetherness far away from Sunnydale and Angel and the accursed slayer, and they would finally be happy again. No distractions, no interlopers, nothing but blood and carnivals – perhaps _the_ Carnival, in Brazil, which seemed to have an endless supply of beautiful girls in beautiful dresses for him to bestow upon his own beautiful love.

He caught a glimpse of Angel out in the atrium, realizing he had the slayer cornered, defenseless.

“God, he’s going to kill her,” he said out loud, momentarily wondering if he should go to his erstwhile ally’s aid. Then he shrugged. _Bugger that._ He had Dru; that was all that mattered. He turned and headed for the door.

That was when Drusilla knocked him out with a single wild punch.

***

Drusilla rose to her feet gracefully, gazing down at her devoted _chevalier_ , pity in her eyes. Poor, poor Spike. She would miss him so. He always brought her the most darling presents, the most delectable tidbits. _Foie gras_ and dollies and entrails and sweets, and the secret songs of his devotion, the ones his heart sang silently when he looked at her, the ones he thought were hidden away. Effulgent and fervent.

But he had betrayed her, had betrayed her Daddy this night and had betrayed them both in his heart, in his future, his future of sunshine and tears. She could not follow him there, and he could not follow her where she was destined to go.

“Forgive me, my gallant Lancelot,” she murmured sweetly. “But Guinevere must follow the Once and Future King.”

Gallant he was, and devoted, but not always wise, her knight-errant, else he would not have thought denying breath to the breathless and bloodflow to the bloodless could bring her low. Foolish, dear boy. So blind. So easily lulled into defenselessness.

How she would miss his jests.

She placed her hand on his head, briefly, found his devotion, cradled it to her mind for a final nostalgic moment, then turned to her Daddy, smiling. She felt wicked, full of joy. The moment had come. Daddy had become Other, had become an avatar of Acathla, and soon the portal would open.

The portal to Avalon.

Where she would rule as Queen.

She laughed and opened her eyes wide to destiny.

***

Angel advanced on Buffy, sneering.  “No weapons... No friends... No hope. Take all that away... and what's left?”  
  
Buffy was empty, completely empty, but in that moment, with her death before her wearing her lover’s face, she suddenly felt something well up inside her, pure and clear like spring water, and she realized everything she had lost, everything she had mourned, had just been masks obscuring the truth. She felt it like sunlight inside her, and as Angel thrust at her with his sword, it came in slow motion; she clapped her hands together and caught it as if it was nothing.  
  
_What’s left?_ she asked herself, and answered out loud, “ _Me._ ”

She shoved the sword forward, feeling Angel’s nose break under the hilt, and leapt up, smiling with newfound confidence as she fought. She was _so_ going to win.

At least she thought so until the first shoe hit her in the head.

She spared a quick glance and saw Drusilla off to one side of the battle, picking up refuse from the floor and flinging it randomly towards the swordfight. The mad vampire had laughably terrible aim, or else really didn’t care; one missile, an old, worn book, hit Angel squarely on the side of the head.

He batted aside a crumpled newspaper, rolling his eyes. “What the fuck, Dru?”

Drusilla laughed merrily, eyes and mouth wide, clapping her hands in glee. “She cannot have you, my king!” She hurled another book; Buffy’s sword cleaved through it, sending pages flying like snow. _What happened to my good buddy Spike?_ she thought grouchily, shifting so she could see both vampires at once. Wait, there he was – crumpled by the door. _Great_.

Behind Angel, the statue of Acathla started to rumble.

***

Willow wasn’t entirely sure how, but between one gasp and the next, something happened, something wonderful and terrible, and she knew, she _knew_ what to do, she didn’t need the printout any more. Her head dropped back and she let the magic and the words – words she had never heard but somehow knew as if they were written on her bones – and the soul, Angel’s soul, she let it all flow right through her, and it was better than anything she had ever experienced, her eyes seeing whole worlds in the foam tile ceiling of her hospital room, seeing the whole universe, vast and glorious and terrifying, and when the final word “ _Acum_!” passed her dry lips she felt the soul go forth, now now NOW, and for a moment she was empty and she wanted to cry, but then everything that was Willow rushed back into the void the magic had left, and she was full and complete again, and she looked around at the room and Oz and Cordelia and the beeping monitors, and everything was back to normal, but it would never be normal again, everything was suddenly _more_. She took a deep shuddering breath and met Oz’s concerned look with a brave, shaky smile.

Cordelia had stopped waving the burning bundle of sage and was staring at her. “Is that it?”

Willow rolled her eyes, because wasn’t it just the way of the world, that she could have a transcendent, universe-expanding experience, and then have to come right back to earth because of _Cordelia_. “Yes, that’s it.” Cordelia wouldn’t know magic if it bit her in the butt.

Some sarcasm must have made it into her voice, because Cordelia gave her a narrow look. “Did it work? I mean, the Orb did that cool glow thing, but, you know, it might have just been because it went wrong.”

“I’m pretty sure it worked,” Willow said confidently. “I felt something go through me.” She looked down at the Orb of Thessulah, now still and cold again in the center of the circle.

Then she frowned, tilting her head. Something about the circle… “Cordelia, did you put out the rune stones exactly like Giles did at the library?”

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Of course I did! There were two stones between each of the candles.”

“Yes, but the symbols…”

“Oh, were those important?” Cordelia shrugged. “I _think_ they were the same. I mean, it’s just a bunch of lines and stuff, right?”

Willow stared at Cordelia, appalled. “Of _course_ they were important! Everything’s important when you’re casting a spell!”

“But you said it worked!” Cordelia stood up abruptly, taking her smoking bundle of sage over to the sink of Willow’s bathroom. “Jeez, picky much?” She doused the burning herbs under the faucet.

Willow looked at Oz significantly, eyes wide; he returned her gaze steadily. “Are _you_ okay?” he asked gravely.

“…Yeah,” Willow grumbled.

“Then the spell was a success,” Oz shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait until Buffy gets back to see if it worked at the other end.” He leaned in and kissed her gently on the forehead. “You did everything you could do. Rest now.” He lifted the tray-table with the candles and rune stones and the Orb and set it on the floor up against the wall while Willow slid back down in her bed, trying not to feel disappointed.

Cordelia came back from the little bathroom, setting her dripping herb bundle down with the rest of the supplies. “So, are we done? I mean, if the world’s not going to end tonight after all, I’d like to get to bed at a decent hour. All the moisturizer in the world can’t fight the effects of sleep deprivation.” She gave Willow a sympathetic look. “I can bring you some exfoliating cleanser if you want. All you have in that bathroom is a tiny bar of Irish Spring.”

“I’m good,” Willow said hurriedly. “You can go.” _Please, please go._

Cordelia looked relieved, but she shook her finger at Willow. “Promise me you’re not going to let that green skin-destroyer anywhere near your face.”

Willow rolled her eyes. “I promise.”

Once Cordelia had left, Oz eased back down on the bed next to Willow, careful not to jostle her monitors and tubes and accoutrements. “So, you really think it worked?”

“I do,” Willow said firmly, snuggling in to Oz a bit while she had the chance. (The night-shift nurse had given them the stink-eye last time she came by to check Willow’s vitals.) “I could feel the soul, Oz. It was there inside me, and then I felt it rush away. It _had_ to have worked.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled the faint remnants of incense and herbs, and the special comforting scent that was Oz, clean soap and spicy deodorant and a lingering hint of the Bronze, and tried not to worry. She knew she had done her best, but… Willow knew how it felt to walk out of a test and know that you had aced it, and she didn’t feel that way now. She felt… B-plus-ish.

She just hoped a B-plus would be good enough.

***

Buffy dodged another shoe, a sassy black stiletto with a red sole – it was _so_ not fair that Drusilla owned a pair of Louboutins when Buffy had to make do with Famous Footwear! _Whoops, distraction!_ She caught herself just in time to parry another blow and was watching for an opening of her own, when three things happened at once.

One – the statue of Acathla trembled and its grotesque mouth yawed open, swirling yellow energies spreading and growing; scattered shreds of paper started to skitter across the floor, drawn to the portal.

Two – Angel froze mid-swing, face a rictus of agony; his eyes started to glow faintly.

And Three – Drusilla shrieked, “NO! You shall not have him!” and flung an entire basket of laundry, hitting Angel square in the face.

There was a sudden blinding flash from within the clothing that enveloped Angel’s head, and Buffy hesitated, wondering what could have happened. Was it a good thing?

Then Angel shook himself like a dog, peeling a sock away from his face to expose his cruelly familiar evil leer. “Looks like I win, lover,” he sneered, jerking his head at the widening portal behind him. He flung the sock off into a corner of the room, glancing away from Buffy for the barest second.

Buffy narrowed her eyes, set her jaw, and stabbed him through the heart.

He roared in fury, reaching out to claw at Buffy’s face, but the violet energies crackling about him twined with the yellow of the portal, holding him in place, and Buffy backed away, watching stoically as he struggled against the forces sucking him inexorably backwards.

She just wished it would happen faster.

***

Spike groggily swam up into consciousness, the clang of swords and Drusilla’s joyful laughter pulling him out of darkness into… yellow. Yellow glowing behind his eyelids, and he sat up all in a rush, instincts screaming _Daylight!_ But it was barely dawn, the sky outside the window just pinkening at the horizon, and the yellow was sickly and pulsated grotesquely.

Drusilla was there, at the edges of the yellow glow, her curls dancing as she whirled and spun. As he watched, she threw a book, then a shoe at the slayer and Angel, who were locked in whirling, frantic battle, swords gleaming unpleasantly in the noisome light.

She was so beautiful, a dark goddess in her element, that for a moment he forgot that he was supposed to be abducting her and getting the hell out of Sunnydale, watching her lithe body arch and sway in an ecstasy of violence, but a moment later he realized the slayer was winning, and he didn’t put it past the crafty bitch to consider their deal to let Dru live null and void – even though he had kept the watcher alive! – just because Drusilla was being a bit of a nuisance, and so he rolled to his feet and started towards the fray.

Drusilla’s shriek as she flung the basket of clothes stopped him in his tracks, wounded, because even now, _even now_ she was thinking only of her sire, of keeping him from Buffy, when she had left him, her devoted slave, like trash in the hall – but he set his jaw and circled around behind her, watching for his chance. So he had a beautiful, satisfying view of the surprise and shock and rage on Angel’s face when Buffy impaled him, and it was just as wonderful as he might have imagined; he grinned at the bastard over Drusilla’s shoulder as he crept up in her blind spot. Now, _now_ Drusilla would be his, for all eternity, and Angel wouldn’t be able to lay his meaty pathetic paws on her again. He reached out for Drusilla’s shoulder…

…and missed as she turned serenely to face him. For a moment she looked into his eyes, her own lit from within, seeing right through him. She reached out a hand, brushed the scratches on his cheek tenderly with her knuckles.

“Farewell,” she said softly, face radiant with unholy joy.

Then she turned and ran to Angel, quivering as the lightning that crackled around him enveloped her as well. She wrapped her arms around Angel’s waist and closed her eyes, laughing as the energy swelled and sizzled and boiled, and then she and Angel and the sword and the light, all went back and in, melting and melding together, flowing into Acathla’s wide-open mouth, and then she was gone.

Gone.

Spike fell to his knees, uncomprehending, as the echoes of Drusilla’s laughter faded.

Then understanding rushed in, and he began to weep.

***

When the light had faded and the wind had stilled and Angel was well and truly gone, Buffy felt the adrenaline and rage that had kept her fighting drain suddenly from her, and her legs trembled and failed, and she landed on her butt in the dust of a dozen vampires, shaking and empty.

As the wind died down, she became aware of the sound of sobs, great wracking heaves of breath and whimpers and moans of sheer misery, and for a moment she thought they were her own tears, that she was so overwhelmed with grief that she didn’t even know she was crying, but then she shuddered and looked across the room and saw Spike, collapsed on the floor, tears running down his pain-wracked face, hands scrabbling at his wet cheeks. She faltered to her feet, stumbling towards him, not knowing anything except that his pain was hers, they were the same in this moment, and she fell beside him, wrapping her arms around him desperately, not caring that he could kill her, just knowing that for this moment he was the only one who could understand, and then the tears came, huge fat drops and desperate sobs, and they clutched at each other for what seemed like hours, giving and seeking solace, here at the end of the world.

Then he shoved her away, eyes furious. “This is all your fault!” he hissed.

Buffy scrubbed tears off her face with a fist. “What, that you couldn’t even take out a girl?” she lashed out.

Then he dove at her neck, fangs out, clumsy with emotion, and she punched him in the nose with her tear-stained fist, then backhanded him upside the head, knocking him out cold.

Her nose was running; she blew it on his shirt, because he was such a stupid jerk.

Then she tossed his unconscious form over her shoulder and left the mansion behind – forever, she hoped. At the threshold she paused, uncertain. She couldn’t go home – maybe not ever, but definitely not tonight – and what she really wanted was to leave, leave everything behind, go somewhere where nobody knew that she was Buffy, that she was a vampire slayer, that she had had to kill her own boyfriend to save the world, somewhere that she could just be an ordinary girl… but she couldn’t just leave Spike there in the mansion, she had to at least restrain him in some way, and there was only one place in town she could be assured of finding manacles and chains without a side order of sex toys (she hoped), and that was Giles’s apartment. And he had a couch, and tea, and a non-evil shoulder she could cry on – hopefully not too badly injured, but she figured Xander would have stuck around if that was the case – and she desperately needed all of the above.

She heaved Spike’s body a bit higher on her shoulder and trudged listlessly off into the night.

***  
Behind her, in a dusty corner of the vaulted hall, something stirred in the shadows…

_It was alive._

 

End Chapter 1

 

Chapter 1 Notes:

In addition to copious dialogue and descriptions of events from “Becoming, Part 2” this chapter has several quotes from Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur,” which has absolutely zero significance for the rest of the story.

 


	2. A Sock with a Soul

It came to awareness slowly.

_I think,_ it thought laboriously.

_Therefore…_

_…therefore…_

_…I am?_

It quivered with profundity. _I am_ , it thought again, more firmly.

Then, _What am I?_

It had senses, though it didn’t understand how or what they were, but around it was the light of a new day, it knew that, so it could _see_ , and it felt a light summer breeze across it, so it could _feel_ , and there was a faint sound of traffic in the distance, the barking of a dog, so it could _hear_ , and that was a pretty decent set of senses, at least fifty percent of the usual complement, so it was content.

(Later, it would learn that it was fortunate indeed not to be able to _smell_ …)

Somehow, though, the _feeling_ part… it felt wrong. It stretched out its senses, trying to determine what it was, and finally realized that it was expecting the stretch and pull of muscle and bone responding to its will. What it felt instead was… well, not muscle, that was certain. It felt like – it searched its vocabulary for the word – it felt like _cotton_.

_Oh, wow._ It felt out its shape, its texture, the limits of its existence, and suddenly was filled with knowledge.

It had a word in its surprisingly-large vocabulary for itself now.

That word was: SOCK.

_Well._

The sock had no memory of what had come before its sockness; for all it knew it had always been a sock, but even so it quivered with strangeness, because just as it knew that it was a sock, it also knew that socks were not generally sentient, nor – it twitched as a test, feeling the ribbing of its cuff expand – animate. Which was a pretty puzzle indeed.

The sock thought about that for a moment, but thinking hard about philosophy and sockness felt an awful lot like _work_ , and while it knew very little about itself, the sock was starting to get the feeling that _work_ was not something it enjoyed.

So anyhow, it was pretty certain it was a sock, and as it coiled around itself, testing its size and texture, it felt very much like a _male_ sock. Both in the sense that it was huge and shapeless and no-nonsense – it had a vision in its consciousness of ladies’ socks being somehow more shapely, possibly adorned with pom-poms – and in the sense that it just felt _male_. A man-sock. A sock with the mind of a man.

And as it tested the limits of its consciousness, it realized that it was more than just a sock with a mind, a sock that could think and feel and move.

It was a sock with a _soul_.

As a matter of fact, from the overwhelming amount of guilt that flooded the sock when it noticed that it was a bit on the grimy side, it was pretty certain its soul was _Catholic_.

Not a _good_ Catholic, it determined, swishing its guilt around for a judicious mental taste. It didn’t feel any strong urge to actually remedy its griminess, or to seek out a priest for absolution. But definitely not a freewheeling Episcopalian sock.

It was pretty sure Episcopalian socks would have stripes. Or even polka dots.

It was surrounded by more socks, dozens of them scattered along the dusty floor, and the Sock with a Soul suddenly felt lonely, because it was the only one that was moving, and though it could not speak, it somehow knew that any word it could utter would just be echoed back to it, here in this vast empty hall.

Even that sexy shoe over there, wantonly flashing its red sole at him, didn’t seem especially soulful. Just soleful. The sock laughed at its own joke, because it was really very funny.

For a sock.

In its loneliness, the sock suddenly felt a pull, something calling to it from a distance. Could it be… could it be the sock had a soulmate? Perhaps it was not destined to be alone forever.

Socks came in pairs, after all. Perhaps souls did, too.

Like an inchworm, the sock began its journey out into the brand new day.

***

Buffy watched the door close behind Xander and Giles and sighed. That was not the way she had hoped things would go. As it turned out, broken fingers made the fixing of tea difficult, and while Giles had made a move to hug her when he saw her face at his door, his joy at her survival was quickly tempered by the sight of the unconscious vampire over her shoulder, and Buffy’s demand that he invite Spike in. Giles had rather enjoyed the chaining-in-the-bathtub part – vicariously, since he couldn’t work the manacles himself – but when Buffy had finally gotten her hug, she could tell it was hesitant, not to mention painful for him, and she had forced a reassuring smile to her face and insisted that Xander take her watcher to the hospital to get his fingers set and other injuries treated, while she stayed to watch over Spike, assuring Giles that she would explain the unconscious vampire later.

Giles had looked at her closely. “Are you sure you’re all right? Angel…”

“Is in hell now,” Buffy had said shortly. “Him and Drusilla both.”

His face had been a blend of relief and compassion, with a hint of grim victory. “Good.” When Buffy remained silent, he had looked at her pointedly again. “And how are you taking it?” he had asked gently.

“Fine,” Buffy lied. “I’m… I’m fine.” She had shrugged, trying to make it look nonchalant. “I got the job done.”

Giles had looked as if he didn’t believe her one bit, but his face had blanched then at the onset of another wave of pain, and Buffy had shooed him and Xander out the door, and so here she was now.

Alone.

With no tea. And no shoulder to cry on.

She looked at the couch, thinking one out of three was better than nothing, but she was still too wired to even think about sleeping, and so she drifted around the apartment, running her hands over the spines of books, peeking into the drawers of the little spice cabinet, finding a smidgen of comfort in the Giles-ness of it all. She made it halfway through reading the antique document on the wall – _what is ‘indenture’ anyhow?_ she wondered halfheartedly – before she realized it was the most boring thing she had ever read in her entire life, and then she heard a groan from the bathroom and went to check on Spike.

He was still mostly unconscious, so she put down the lid of the toilet and sat, watching him twitch. The fluorescent lights made him look like a corpse – which he was, she reminded herself, but he didn’t seem like it when he was awake – his hands white and pale against the black iron manacles, and his face seamed with grief.

His eyes finally blinked open, and for a moment he looked lost and surprised, like a little boy, but then his flickering glance rested on her, and his eyebrows knit and his eyes narrowed and he was comfortingly evil again. “ _You._ ”

“Me,” Buffy agreed, crossing her legs.

He started to lunge for her, but was caught short by the chains. He looked at his chained wrists and ankles, shook his head disbelievingly, and started to laugh. “I knew it,” he muttered darkly. “I sodding knew you’d find an excuse to take me down.”

“If I wanted to take you down, you’d be a pile of dust,” Buffy replied, though she suddenly realized she didn’t know why she had brought Spike home with her. She had just… not been able to leave him there alone. It had felt wrong. Inhumane.

“Wish I were,” Spike said in a low voice, looking down and off to the side, laughter gone. “Not much point in going on now, is there?”

Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, remembering yellow, and a voice gone wrong. “Of course there is,” she said quietly, but she could hear in her own voice that she didn’t really feel it. She shook herself, because that was a dark path she didn’t want to start down, and tried again. “There’s always a point.”

Spike glared at her sidelong, tears brimming up in his eyes. “Easy for you. You had your precious Angel for, what, a year?” He sniffled. “Dru and I were forever. More than a century together, and…”

Buffy interrupted, furious. “And she dumped you in a nonexistent heartbeat the second Angel crooked his finger.” How _dare_ he put down her forever love just because it had been brand-new? Forever had to start sometime, right?

Spike snarled at her, lunging fruitlessly again. “Fuck you,” he hissed.

“Yeah, you wish,” Buffy sniffed.

Spike raked her with a disdainful glare. “Not much for Angel’s sloppy seconds, love.”

“Funny, that’s what I was going to say about your hobag girlfriend!” Buffy was on her feet now, hands on her hips.

Spike’s mouth was gaping like a goldfish at that, and then he crumpled visibly, tears coursing down his face. “You can’t talk about my Dru that way,” he sobbed. “Not when she’s…” He broke down completely.

Buffy tried not to give in to evil peer pressure, but the tears were already coursing down her cheeks; she managed to mumble out something about Angel and punching Spike in the nose before she fell to her knees beside the tub and started weeping again, hot forehead pressed against the cool porcelain rim of the tub, crying not just for Angel but for Kendra and Miss Calendar and Giles’s poor fingers and everything. _Everything_. She let it all rush through her. The guilt and the pain. Her mom kicking her out. Snyder’s nasty grin when he expelled her. All of it, all of this horrible, miserable year, and especially the horrible, miserable fact that the only person who could witness her grief wasn’t even a person at all, that a soulless monster was the only one who could come close to understanding it all. She hated him, she _hated_ him, but she heard an echo in her head of his snarky words from earlier: _And I’m all you’ve got._

Somewhere in there, between one bout of sobs and another, she found herself grasping desperately until she found Spike’s hand with hers; they clasped tightly enough to grind bones together, and the pain was good, it gave her something to hold on to besides the grief, and gradually their weeping died down from wracking wails to petulant sniffles, and finally she lifted her head to look Spike in the face.

“Let me go,” Spike said softly, looking longingly at the sunlit window.

“I can’t,” Buffy whispered back. “You’ll just burn up. I can’t just let you do that.”

“Oh, but you can stake me?” Spike bit out resentfully.

“I _didn’t_ stake you, did I?” Buffy said quietly.

Spike looked away, then lifted his head again, eyes wild and imploring. “I won’t do anything. Promise. I feel much better now.”

Buffy rolled her eyes at that. “You are such a liar.” He looked disgusted, and she gripped his hand tightly again. “Don’t go,” she said, voice hard. “We’re still allies, right? We saved the world. So now it’s time to save ourselves.”

Spike favored her with a sardonic look. “What, plan on getting thee to a nunnery?”

“I… don’t even know what that means,” Buffy said impatiently. “Look, I need a partner. I have an idea, and you’re the only one that can help me. You’re the only one who will _want_ to help me. And, well, I don’t think I can open a dimensional portal all on my own.”

“You mean…” Spike’s face lit up with uncertain hope.

“We’re going to find a way to get them back,” Buffy vowed. “You and me. Willow can be on standby to put Angel’s soul back, I know she’ll help me when it comes down to that, and then everything will be all right. Right?”

Spike set his jaw. “Get them back. Right. Then I’ll take Dru and leave…”

“…And I’ll stay here with Angel. And we will never have to see each other, ever again.”

Buffy could tell by the look in Spike’s eyes that he liked that last idea just as much as she did. Even though holding his hand felt kinda nice, now that they weren’t all desperate and crunchy. Cool and soothing. She dropped it before it started feeling _too_ nice.

Buffy rose to her feet again, wiping her cheeks off briskly. “You still have to stay chained most of the time. I can’t trust you not to murder us in our sleep.”

“Fair enough,” Spike muttered, with a _curses, foiled again_ look on his face. “Long as you promise not to stake me while I’m chained in this sodding tub. Not how I want to go.”

“Deal.”

Spike shifted in the tub. “Can I at least have a cushion?” he pouted.

“I think I can swing that,” Buffy shrugged.

“And a television, perhaps?” Spike wheedled.

“God, give it a rest,” Buffy grumbled, heading for the door. “I’ll get you a pillow and you can take a nap first. We can discuss time-sharing Giles’s Cro-Magnon electronics when he gets back from the hospital.”

Spike muttered something under his breath that sounded uncomplimentary, but Buffy let it go. It wasn’t like he was going to be around very long anyhow. She started towards the hall, then hesitated in the doorway. “Spike?”

“What now, Slayer?” he grumbled.

She looked back at him, feeling suddenly soft. “We’ll get them back. There has to be a way.”

Even though he was evil and she hated him, the look of camaraderie and hope in his eyes made her smile as she went to find him a cushion. Though she saved the fluffiest one for herself. Giles’s couch was practically a rock.

As she curled up on the hard couch, she repeated her own words to herself, like a prayer. _There has to be a way_.

***

“I’m afraid there’s no possible way to do what you are asking.”

Buffy valiantly ignored Spike’s glare of wounded betrayal, sinking down in a chair opposite Giles with an encouraging, hopeful smile on her face. “Are you sure? I mean, you still have a lot of books that we haven’t looked at yet. I can totally help.” She hated research, but she would gladly read a million fusty boring books if it meant getting Angel back.

Giles gave her a withering look that spoke volumes of his regard for Buffy’s research skills relative to his own. “I am quite certain,” he said shortly. “Every one of my sources that so much as mentions Acathla confirms that the ritual is a one-time opportunity, and the ritual has now been completed. I have also examined the statue of Acathla myself, and I assure you that it is completely dormant. In addition, both of the swords involved in the ritual have been consumed, or transported, and are no longer here.”

“Yes, but… You know how when those kids went to Narnia, they got there a different way every time? Like, there was a wardrobe, and then, um, not a wardrobe? Anyhow, there might be another way to get to that demon dimension besides the Acathla thing, right?”

Giles removed his glasses, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. “Buffy, you are not seriously suggesting that we go on a Grand Tour of demon dimensions, on the off chance that we will successfully find this – by all accounts _particularly_ unpleasant – one location? Forget the needle in the haystack, it would be like trying to find a particular grain of sand in the Sahara Desert.”

She actually was suggesting exactly that – a million demon dimensions were _tons_ better than a million fusty books – but she decided this might be a bad time to push the matter, with Giles’s fingers still splinted and new bruises still popping up every so often on his skin. Not that _her_ Angel was responsible for that, not _good_ Angel, but she knew how hard it was to tell the two apart, and of course there was Drusilla. She hadn’t even mentioned that part to Giles, because he _so_ wouldn’t understand. She met Spike’s pissed-off eyes for a moment.

…Yeah, she didn’t understand it either. But a promise was a promise, and Spike had managed to keep Giles alive – Giles wasn’t happy with his methods, but they had worked – and furthermore he had been pretty well-behaved for the past few days, at least in the sense of not actively trying to kill anyone else or himself. He was still an asshole, and he still went off into crying jags at the most ridiculous provocation (she also was crying a lot, but she of course totally had Good Reasons), but he was sort of bearable once in a while.

Giles turned away from his books with an air of finality. “In any case, there are more pressing matters to deal with. Your mother…”

“I don’t want to talk to her,” Buffy said quickly.

Giles continued, unrelenting. “Your mother called again this morning, and I think it would be in your best interest to call her back today.”

Buffy jumped to her feet. “She kicked me out, Giles!” she said, starting to pace.

“She said something terrible in the heat of the moment which she deeply regretted just seconds later. She wants you to come back home. She wants to make amends.” Giles looked vaguely off into the distance. “She even says you can bring Spike with you.”

“Oh. _Oh_. I see what this is all about. You just want Spike out of your bathtub.”

“ _I_ want out of his sodding bathtub,” Spike grumbled from the couch.

Buffy glared at Giles, ignoring Spike. “Do you want my mother to get eaten?” Buffy folded her arms.

“I wouldn’t eat Joyce,” Spike assured her. “She’s a lovely lady.”

“I will, of course, assist you in installing appropriate restraints for Spike,” Giles said with a bit of an eye roll – that subtle British-y one that he didn’t think Buffy had caught on to yet, but she totally had. “However, there is no denying that your mother’s house has significantly more room for both you and Spike. You will have your own bed, rather than the couch you complain so vociferously about. And, I should point out, you are still a minor, and will be for many months to come. Like it or not, your mother is the most appropriate guardian for you.”

Buffy pouted. “She should have thought about that before she kicked me out.”

With a sigh, Giles continued. “I understand your feelings about your mother are… complicated at the moment. But returning to your home is the logical thing to do. Especially since you have your appeal to the school board coming up so soon.”

“Yeah. That.” Buffy sat down on her chair again. “How important is a high school diploma anyhow? I’m going to die one of these days, and then I’ll be sorry about all the things I missed out on while trying to graduate.” She frowned. “Well, I won’t be sorry, I’ll be dead, but someone will feel sorry for me and my truncated youth, misspent on Geometry and Civics.”

“I won’t,” Spike volunteered with a shark-like grin, though he had a funny look in his eyes when he said it.

“We know, Spike,” Buffy huffed. “You’re gonna bathe in my blood, dance on my grave, and desecrate my corpse, and if I’m very lucky you’ll do it in that order.” She put a little extra bite in her voice because seriously, Spike could show a little concern for the girl who had patted his back and made comforting noises every time he had turned on the faucets over his stupid girlfriend. Well, okay, he had shown concern at the time, because she might have gotten a little teary too, and he had done a bit of awkward back-patting himself, but you’d think after days of mutual Patting of the Backs, he’d at least stop reveling in the thought of her death. Jerk.

Giles frowned. “Buffy, time spent on your education is not _mis_ spent.”

“I am _so_ glad that you have such a finely-tuned sense of priorities, Giles. Semantics over desecration.” Buffy was getting a good head of steam going on her outrage now.

“I think you are vastly misinterpreting my concerns, here.” Giles removed his glasses, inspecting them self-consciously. “I completely understand that an early death would render the need for an education moot.” He replaced his glasses, giving Buffy a wry smile. “However, spending two years as your watcher has filled me with faith that you have a good chance of being the longest-lived Slayer ever on the books. If I did not believe that you would live long enough to need your education, I would be a rotter and a fool to insist on it.”

“Oh.” Buffy sniffled a bit at that, deflating, then rushed over to hug Giles. Gingerly, because he didn’t need more pain. “That is so sweet!” She stepped back, face earnest. “But you know, if I didn’t go to school, I could totally spend some of that extra time training. Then I’d probably live even longer! So…”

Giles cut her off with a reproving look, though he was half-smiling. “However, since I do expect you to live long enough to eventually be a self-sufficient adult, I am afraid I must insist that you at the very least graduate high school.”

“Rats.”

“So. Call your mother.” Giles handed her the phone. “Because while I am both pleased and proud that you are so strong and capable, I would like your long life as a slayer to not be spent sleeping on my couch. Contrary to popular belief, I do have something of a life of my own.” He looked pointedly at Spike, who was now flipping through the TV channels, finally settling on the WB and some newish teen drama. “I would very much like it back.”

There was really no arguing with that double-whammy combination of compliments and guilt-tripping; Buffy sullenly dialed her home number.

***

The sock was close, it could feel it; the pull was so strong now it was like a fishing line, reeling the sock in. For a moment it wished it were a boot, just for the iconic symbolism, but it had had several days to come to terms with its sockitude, and other than the fact that its epic trip across town had taken days and involved multiple close calls with dogs and one _very_ close encounter with a car – being run over was not pleasant, but the sock had nothing to break, so it was just a little dirtier – it was feeling pretty good about itself. Whatever the magic animating it was, it gave the sock some decent power relative to its size; it could move small objects, climb curbs and steps, and even leap a few feet (this discovery had been courtesy of a very curious, very drooly Rottweiler).  It wasn’t sure how many days and nights it had traveled, but it felt much like an epic knight of old, enduring wild beasts and the elements (though the California summer was actually very pleasant, there was always the chance of rain, and the sock had no umbrella) and grave, grave danger to come at last to its final destination.

_There_.

Just half a block away, the sock saw a trio of figures stepping up from a sunken courtyard. The two men were unimportant; it was the athletic girl with a swirl of honey-blonde hair, gleaming in the light of the streetlamps, who caught at the sock’s soul. _She_ was what it had been seeking all along! Its princess, its Holy Grail, its _raison d’etre_.

The sock fell in love at first sight. No, it had always loved her.

It inched faster and faster, hugging the edge of the sidewalk to remain unseen. The girl and the men were getting into a little yellow car – a cheap, crappy one, if the sock’s instinctive feeling of disdain was to be believed – and arguing about something, though it couldn’t hear the words.

It was so close now. _So close_. The sock’s ribbing tensed in anticipation.

Ten feet. The car doors slammed.

Five. The crappy car puttered to life.

And then, just as the sock was close enough to see the blonde girl’s profile – she looked unhappy, and the sock’s tender heart broke at the sight – the car pulled away from the curb. The sock watched in dismay as the taillights receded into the darkness, the pull of the girl, its one true love, getting farther and farther away.

The sock had many epithets and curses in its vocabulary, but only one felt right for this exact moment of weary disappointment.

_Darn._

It laughed bitterly to itself and began making its slow, tortuous way in the direction the car had gone.

***

Spike glared resentfully around the basement, taking in the washing machine, the shelves of boxed storage, the bare concrete floor. And he had thought sleeping in a sodding wheelchair while Angel boisterously fucked Dru in the next room was degrading. It wasn’t the dust, or the faint smell of bleach, or even the looming, vaguely disorganized shelves.

It was the fact that this dank cave of suburban mediocrity belonged to the slayer.

She probably thought keeping him from the immolation that was his goddamn right was a kindness, some sort of mercy, but making him live in her basement, dependent on her charity deliveries of pig’s blood, forced to sit in solitude while his mind replayed his devastating loss over and over – ah, that was a torture worthy of Angel at his peak. He glowered at her as she set up a camp cot against the wall, flaunting her juicy ass right in his face, as if he weren’t any more threatening than a sodding hamster.

He wondered what she would do if he walked up behind her, cupped that sweet ass, maybe pulled her hips right up against him, so she could feel just how big his Big Bad was. Would she finally, mercifully stake him? Or just beat the crap out of him and make him go on unliving his hell of an unlife? He suspected the latter. Bitch had some sort of bug up her ass about their alliance, like it made her somehow responsible for him, which in her twisted brain required her to turn him into her pet.

There was a momentary flash in his head of a third option, a third way she might react to his hands and his cock, but it was just too sick to contemplate, even if it had been months since he had gotten off. Disgusting. He waved it away.

“Are you sure he wouldn’t be more comfortable in the guest room?” Joyce was standing on the stairs, arms piled high with fluffy pillows and blankets. She had been awkward when they arrived at the house, but she was a true lady, hospitality ingrained in her very soul, and she had managed to greet him politely, even share a little inane small talk, and now here she was to try and make his cave of despair cozy, even while Giles was impatiently clanking Spike’s heavy chains right next to her.

“Walls aren’t sturdy enough,” Buffy said shortly. “He’d pull the chains right out. And I don’t think we can cover up the windows well enough.”

Joyce shifted from one foot to another. “We could always bring the guest room bed downstairs,” she suggested.

“Mom, he’s not going to be staying here long enough to rearrange the furniture. There’s just something we need to take care of, super quick. Then he’ll be out of our hair.” She stepped back from the cot, looking earnestly at Spike, as if she actually cared what he thought. “This will be okay, right?”

He glared at her. Did she really think he was going to be _pleased_ with this little arrangement? Buffy met him glare for glare, eyes intense.

Joyce sighed and slipped past them, dropping the blankets and pillows on the cot. “Let me go make some hot chocolate. Or did you want tea?” She smiled tentatively.

“Hot chocolate would be just lovely,” Spike purred, eyes still locked on Buffy’s. “Do you have any of those little marshmallows?”

Buffy looked like she was torn between wanting to roll her eyes and wanting to win their little staring contest, but the contest won. “Sure, Mom. Thanks.”

Joyce gave Spike a little awkward smile and bustled up the stairs.

With an annoyed harrumph, Giles started the process of bolting chains to the cinderblock wall; Spike immediately ceded the contest, glancing away from Buffy in favor of watching Giles’s hands to see if he made any mistakes that could be exploited for an escape once the sun was up. Buffy made a little huff, of either victory or exasperation.

Tragically, it looked like Giles really knew his way around chain installation; it didn’t take long before the manacles were hanging securely from the wall. The chains were long enough that Spike would be able to lie down and walk around some, but just too short for him to get to the storage shelves. Spike would have wondered how Giles knew so much about bondage, if he hadn’t looked in that box under Giles’s bed one of the times he snuck upstairs to steal the good whiskey.

He would have to stop by and pick up a few toys once he had Dru back. He thought she would be particularly fond of _that_ one, might spend hours employing it on Spike.

Now _that_ would be something worth living for.

Buffy was still watching him when Giles made his tweedy way back up the stairs, her eyes full of concern and compassion. It made Spike want to heave, and he lashed out. “Got a fucking problem, Slayer?”

“Is that a real question?” Buffy said back, face shifting into a much-more-welcome look of annoyance. “Because I know you know exactly what my problem is.”

He wanted to punch her, wipe that bitchy look right off her face, and then it occurred to him that he _could_ punch her, that he wasn’t chained or restrained in any way, so he decided to go with the flow and let his fist fly.

She blocked it easily. “What the hell, Spike?”

“You pissed me off,” Spike shrugged, trying a backhand.

Buffy blocked again, and let loose a kick of her own, sweeping Spike’s feet out from under him; he bit his tongue, tasting blood in his mouth, and grinned, lunging into battle. It felt wonderful, letting go at last.

Or at least it felt wonderful until Buffy seized him by the throat and pinned him against the wall, right next to the chains, and it was just like Drusilla, just like that last fight, and he found himself staring at Buffy and seeing Dru, and then he couldn’t see anything because he was sodding crying again, pinned like a sniveling bug and feeling the absence of his beautiful dark princess like a black hole, and then Buffy let him fall to his new, pathetic bed and sat beside him, wrapping her arms around him. It didn’t take long before she was shaking with tears, too, because that was what they did now, they cried together because it was better than crying alone.

They had a silent treaty, built by the habit of days now, that these moments were somehow not part of their usual enmity, that their mutual grief was a flag of truce; he nuzzled into the comfort of her pulse now without even thinking about biting her, and she held him close without fear, both knowing that any moment now, they would push each other away and things would be back to normal, as if nothing at all had happened, and they would once again be reluctant, temporary allies who hated each other with a fiery passion. Nothing they did in these stolen seconds counted, not the glide of her hands across his back, not the press of her hip against his as they sat side by side, not the way his open mouth slid up her tear-damp throat, blindly seeking out her soft lips…

She gasped against him, but she didn’t pull away, and her lips tasted like salt and despair, just what he needed most, and he drank it all in, pressing her back among the heaped blankets, and her arms pulled him closer, and with his eyes closed he could pretend that he was pretending he was kissing Drusilla, though every sense screamed _Buffy_ at him, because he should only want to kiss Drusilla, he shouldn’t want this, and besides he knew she had to be pretending she was kissing Angel, and the thought made him jealous, because it wasn’t right, kissing someone else using Spike’s lips as a proxy, who did she think she was? So he kissed her more urgently and ran his hands up her sides to cup her breasts, rolling her hard nipples in his palms, and she whimpered against his mouth, arching upwards…

“Hot chocolate’s ready!” Joyce said from the top of the stairs with forced cheeriness, and even though she couldn’t see the cot from there, it brought Spike back to himself and his eyes flew open to meet Buffy’s, and then they were shoving away from each other, until they were sitting on opposite ends of the cot, looking at the heaped shelves. Or at least that’s what Spike was looking at, and he didn’t want to know if Buffy was looking at him, so he resisted the urge to check.

“That didn’t happen,” Spike said finally, scrubbing the tears off his cheeks with his fist. He felt like he should scrub off his mouth, too, but he inexplicably didn’t want to. He could still taste her.

“No,” Buffy agreed in a quiet voice. “No, it didn’t.” Spike turned just enough that he could watch her out of the corner of his eye as she pulled up the hem of her shirt to dab at her cheeks.

“I hate you, Slayer,” he said suddenly, just in case she was getting ideas.

Buffy laughed with what sounded like genuine amusement. “I hate you too, Spike.”

They headed up for their hot chocolate.

***

The sock made its way up the sunny sidewalk of 1630 Revello Drive, relief coursing through its every fiber. It had taken several more days of dodging traffic and animals and inquisitive demons, but it was finally here. It could feel her inside, like a beacon of hope, and it couldn’t help but wriggle in excitement as it slunk up the stairs to the porch.

It was so excited that it took a huge chance in the hope of getting inside, gathering itself for a leap and aiming for the doorbell. It took a couple of tries, but when it finally slithered up onto the porch railing and launched itself like a cannon, it was able to press hard enough to ring the bell; when it fell back to the porch floor, it huddled against the wall, pressing itself behind the doorframe, so _she_ couldn’t see it.

The door opened. “Hello?”

Her voice! It was like angels singing! The sock wanted to bask in her presence, but it knew it didn’t have time; it quickly inched around the edge of the door, hiding under a little table in the foyer. Once it finally thought it was well camouflaged, it turned its attention to _her_.

She was peering outside, squinting a little to see in the sunlight, and the sock swelled with adoration, because even looking confused and annoyed, she was a vision of perfection, glowing in a red halter top and jeans. When she finally shrugged and closed the door, the sock followed her back into the living room, creeping cautiously behind the couch when she sat on it. It settled in, giddy at the thought that it was finally here, it had finally found _her_.

It frowned to itself. _Now_ what was it supposed to do?

“Who was that?” said a chirpy female voice.

“Must have been a prank,” _she_ said dismissively. “If it were a couple hours later I’d blame vampires, but sun won’t set for a while.” The couch squeaked a bit, as if she were settling into a more comfortable position. “Anyhow, you were telling me about, um, something?”

“Oh,” the other voice said sheepishly. “I forgot. It was something about school.”

“In that case, don’t bother,” _she_ said wryly. “Lucky me, Giles pulled some strings behind the scenes, so I get to be back in class first thing Monday morning, completely reinstated just in time for finals.”

“Ooh, I bet Snyder was mad.”

“He was _livid_. Even had a note from the mayor, who apparently has strong opinions about troublemakers in the school system. But we won. I guess the Watcher’s Council is good for something other than drinking tea and sending out stuffy memos.”

“Well, I’ve missed you. It was weird getting out of the hospital and then having to go to a no-Buffy school.”

His true love said something in reply, but the sock didn’t hear it, because it was too thrilled. It knew her _name_. Buffy. _Buffy._ It took a moment to treasure its new knowledge.

Though it was kind of a silly name for a goddess. _Hmmm._ It shrugged and went back to eavesdropping.

“…I can’t believe he told you I said to kick Angel’s ass!” The other, less-important voice dropped on that last word, like it didn’t feel comfortable saying a bad word out loud.

“I know, right?” Buffy sighed. “Still, it’s probably just as well that the spell didn’t work. It was bad enough stabbing Angel and sending him to hell when he was evil. I can’t imagine how awful it would’ve been if he’d gotten his soul back after it was already too late.”

“Awww.” There was a sound of rustling fabric that the sock assumed was some sort of hugging. Which was not very exciting to eavesdrop on.

There was some sniffling, too. Then some flat-out sniffing. “Willow, do you smell something gross?”

“Sorry, I have a bit of a cold. Can’t smell anything.”

“Oh.”

The hugging recommenced.

Suddenly the sock was overwhelmed with sadness. Buffy would never hug a sock, no matter how much fabric softener had been used in the laundry. It loved her completely, but she could never love it back. They were – the sock would have sniffled if it had a nose – yarn-crossed lovers.

It knew then what it had to do. It had found its soulmate, and now it had to dedicate itself to making her happy. Because as long as Buffy was happy somewhere in the world, the sock would be content. For a moment the sock pictured itself always by her side, flicking pebbles out of her path so she did not stumble, flinging itself into puddles so that her feet would never get wet, offering itself up as sacrifice to any dogs that might menace her… The more the sock thought about it, the more it seemed like always being by his true love’s side was going to be a lot of _work_. Ugh. It didn’t need to waste time with all those little things, anyhow. What it needed was a big grand gesture, something dramatic and impressive, so he could get all the happiness-making done right away, maybe go off and take a vacation after. That seemed like the best plan.

Secure in its newfound mission, the sock curled up and listened more.

 “…so you’re doing okay?”

“Define ‘okay,’” Buffy said sadly, and the sock sighed at how miserable she sounded. “I mean, look at my life, Willow. Or, well, you can’t because there’s not even enough of a life to look at. School is awful, slaying is awful and deadly, and I can’t even trust my mom now.”

Willow made a comforting noise.

“I mean, the only thing I have going for me now is my friends. You guys are it.” She was silent for a few moments before going on. “And now Angel’s gone, and I’m thinking, is it even worth it?”

“Buffy, you can’t be too hard on yourself. Sure, your boyfriend turned evil, and tried to destroy the world, and you had to kill him yourself before that happened, but that doesn’t mean you can’t _ever_ find love!”

“Yes, but… but I’ve tried dating guys at school, and you saw how that worked out. I mean, I feel like I should come with a warning label or something. Plus, maybe there’s something wrong in my brain. Maybe I’ve got my wires crossed somehow.”

“Buffy, of course not!”

“I mean, just look at my life so far. I feel like I need to be on one of those lame daytime tell-all shows.” She laughed bitterly. “’Oh, hi, I’m Buffy! Normal guys aren’t good enough for me, oh no, I can only fall in love with evil vampires, because that’s _totally_ the way to a fairy tale happy ending!’”

Behind the couch, the sock quivered in joy. This was its chance! Buffy had given it the recipe to her perfect happiness, and now all it had to do was find her someone she could fall in love with so she could live happily ever after.

It pondered her words carefully. So. No normal guys. That narrowed down the field a lot, because by definition, most guys were basically normal, or it wouldn’t be the norm. No, Buffy had been very clear: she could only fall in love with evil vampires.

The sock would have to find her one.

It just hoped it wouldn’t be too much work.

There was a metallic clanging from downstairs; the sock and Willow both jumped in shock. It peered around the corner at Buffy, who was just rolling her eyes.

“Speaking of evil vampires…” she said drily.

“You’ve got vampires in the basement?” Willow’s eyes were as round as moons. The sock perked up its (figurative) ears. In the basement! How convenient!

“Not vampires, plural. Vampire, singular. It’s just Spike.”

“Spike’s in your basement?” Willow squealed.

“Long story,” Buffy shrugged. “The short version is, he’s chained up and spends all his time crying, so not a big deal.” She stood. “He’s probably hungry. We ran out of blood this morning, I had to run to the butcher’s.” She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge; the sock heard the beeping of microwave buttons a moment later. “You don’t have to stick around for feeding time, Willow,” Buffy said over the hum of the microwave. “It’s kind of gross to watch.”

“I bet.” Willow made a disgusted sound; the sock watched as she gathered up her backpack and walked over to the kitchen doorway. “So, see you at the Bronze tonight?”

“Not tonight,” Buffy sighed. “Mom has an opening at the gallery, and I promised her I wouldn’t leave Spike in the house alone. He was really depressed yesterday, and she’s afraid he’ll stake himself on one of her wooden spoons.”

“…Can you stake a vampire with a spoon? I’d think they were too, you know, spoony.”

“He’s probably smart enough to break off the handle, Will.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I guess that would work then.” Willow had a frustrated sheepish tone to her voice, the sound of someone who usually didn’t miss the obvious.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got the Spike situation under control.”

Willow headed for the door then; the sock waited until the door closed behind her, then inched out along the wall, watching carefully for Buffy. The microwave dinged, and Buffy muttered something about how it better be good enough because she wasn’t getting her mom’s meat thermometer all blood-contaminated and came out of the kitchen, a coffee mug in her hand.

She opened a door in the wall, right past where the sock was huddled, and cheekily called down the stairs, “You rang?”

From the basement, the sock heard a grumpy male voice with an English accent – East London? “Bloody right, I rang! You want me to waste away to a sodding skeleton down here?”

As Buffy headed down the stairs, the sock crept after her, finding a spot at the top where it could watch through the railing as she handed the mug of blood to the bleach-blond vampire who was pacing at the limits of long black iron chains attached to his wrists and ankles with heavy manacles. “Yes, I have been taking care of you for more than a week just so that I can eventually have your shriveled corpse in my basement,” Buffy said sarcastically, handing Spike his mug. They both sat on the cot, stiffly, as he drank.

Finally, Buffy sighed. “How are you feeling today?”

“Loads better,” the vampire said in a tone of cheer so false it was practically plastic. “I think I’m good to be on my own now.”

“God, Spike, learn how to lie some time,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes.

They sat silently, taking turns stealing sidelong glances at each other, occasionally shifting minutely on the edge of the cot. The sock watched them carefully; if it had possessed eyes, it would have narrowed them in speculation. Each of their shifts brought them a tiny bit closer together, until eventually their knees touched. Both of them studiously looked anywhere but at each other, but their knees stayed in contact.

“Want to watch a movie?” Buffy said after a bit.

“ _Fuck_ , no,” Spike growled sullenly, subtly pressing his knee against hers. “Not if you’re picking.”

“You can pick,” Buffy grudgingly conceded. “But I have veto power.”

Spike took another drink of his blood, looking off at the washing machine. “Well, okay then.”

The sock wished it had eyes so that it could roll them, because there was so much sexual tension in the air even a sock – a _sock_ , with no sexuality of its own whatsoever, not to mention a mouth – was practically salivating, and they were wasting their time with small talk.

Buffy wanted a fairy-tale happy ending. She needed an evil vampire to fall in love with. And here she had an evil vampire, that she apparently was attracted to, chained in her basement, all primed for the loving. The sock had vowed to make Buffy happy by whatever means necessary, but it definitely preferred expending as little effort as possible, and as it looked Spike up and down, it came to one inevitable conclusion:

_He’ll do._

 

End Chapter 2


	3. A Sock with a Mission

The sock thought it deserved a medal for its patience.

First off, it had watched and waited as Buffy and Spike debated what movie they wanted to watch, when anybody with a brain could see they wanted to tumble onto the tiny cot and get busy right then and there. Seriously, what was wrong with them?

Then, when the sun finally went down and Buffy deemed the windowed living room vampire-safe, they had sat at opposite ends of the couch, not even touching as they watched some stupid movie with no romantic ambiance whatsoever, barely even speaking.

And now Buffy was taking Spike back downstairs to chain him up again, and she hadn’t even held his hand once!

The sock was willing to do its share of the work for the relationship, it supposed, if it had to, but was it too much to expect them to meet it halfway? Didn’t Buffy want true love with an evil vampire?

With all of that in mind, the sock decided that its first move was to get the clueless couple in physical contact with each other. That was always a good start for the snugglies. The girl would fall into her future-lover’s strong arms; he would catch her, and they would both blush with unexpected lust, before the man dove in confidently for a first, passionate kiss…

Well, other than the fact that Buffy was demonstrably stronger than Spike – she had restrained him with one hand when he had tried to escape before the movie – it was the perfect plan. So the sock followed them as they walked down the stairs, waiting for a moment when Buffy looked shove-able.

When she was about halfway down, prodding Spike ahead of her, the sock made its move, launching itself at Buffy’s back, hoping to knock her off balance and into the vampire’s waiting arms so they could make with the happily-ever-after smoochies.

Alas, the laws of physics cared not for the sock’s noble mission, and Buffy barely even felt a tap on her back. The sock stuck there – having at least worked up a good charge of static electricity while scooting across the carpet – and desperately plotted its next move. Maybe it could lure Spike into Buffy’s bed? Or set Spike up outside Buffy’s window with a boom box? That sort of thing worked really well in movies… The sock was so lost in thought that it didn’t notice that Buffy had noticed it.

She frowned, craning her neck to look over her shoulder. “Oh, _ew!_ ” She reached back and plucked the sock off her back. “Spike, how did your grody sock end up stuck to my shirt?” She held it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, nose wrinkling in revulsion.

The sock felt its fragile heart crumble at its true love’s disdain. It was true, it was dirty and disgusting and unworthy. It would never be worthy. It dangled limply, discouraged.

Spike glared up at Buffy. “Not my sock.” He grinned ferally. “My socks are black and sexy, like my unbeating heart.” He eyed the sock again. “Get all of mine from Marks and Spencer, can’t beat the quality. _That_ looks like sodding _Hanes._ ” His voice dripped with snobbery.

Buffy gave him a withering look. “Well, it’s not mine, and it’s not Mom’s. You’re the only guy around. Ergo, you’re the obvious culprit.”

Spike snagged the sock, looking it over judiciously. “Looks like one of Angel’s.” Buffy’s face crumpled; Spike didn’t even notice, face growing blacker. “He liked to steal the white ones, then wear ‘em around out in the garden, get the soles all black. Was sort of his thing.” Spike’s hand clenched into a fist around the sock; it was suddenly very glad it had no bones, because they would surely have broken. “Taking something pure and corrupting it.” His eyes were suddenly bleak. “Like my precious… darling…”

His cavernous eyes met Buffy’s, tears welling up, and they collapsed weeping into each other’s arms, sinking to the floor as they bawled.

Forgotten in their orgy of misery, the sock cautiously inched away and into the basket of dirty laundry waiting by the washing machine, where it curled and observed the couple as their wracking sobs gradually dissolved into awkwardness, and finally sullen, snarky insults that ended with Buffy clapping Spike’s manacles back on and stomping up the stairs while he flung himself on his hard cot, muttering curses. _Hmmm._ There had been physical contact all right, but even that bit at the end, where it had sworn they were going to kiss each other from the way their cheeks brushed together, had fizzled away without any progress whatsoever.

The sock hoped its interference hadn’t been the reason nothing happened, ruining the almost-romantic mood with its dirty self. It was a tragic thing, being sock-blocked.

Anyhow, it looked like they had a long way to go to their happy ending, the sock sighed to itself. But that was all right. The Sock with a Soul was burdened with glorious purpose, and it would carry out its mission, no matter how long it took. Buffy and Spike would be together, someday. The sock vowed it.

In the meantime, the sock had an important date with a bottle of bleach.

***

Buffy stood on the triangular patch of grass in front of the school, squinting into the afternoon sun as she waited for Willow, Xander and Cordelia. Finals were over, and she should by rights be happy, looking forward to a summer of frolic and fun, but mostly she just felt tired.

She had finally resumed patrolling, though her heart wasn’t exactly in it, and things were really slow. She supposed the whole thing with Acathla had sent a lot of the locals running to slayer-free towns, though she knew eventually the pull of the Hellmouth would summon them all back again. Lucky her. So she wandered the empty cemeteries and sometimes sparred with the air and missed Angel. Some nights she even missed having evil Angel around, because protecting her loved ones at least gave her something to do, so she didn’t feel so empty.

And then every night after patrol, she came home to Spike.

He hadn’t kissed her again since the night he had moved into the basement, which was of course right and proper and exactly what she wanted, but over the past couple of weeks their pattern of fighting-then-crying had gotten, not just familiar, but… well, she had caught herself walking faster on her way home from patrol, heart beating fast in anticipation, and it was just weird. But it was true that arguing with Spike helped her get to where she could let go of her constant emotional control, let down the walls for a little while, and then the crying part felt like it was slowly leaching poison out of her soul, and then the hugging part just felt nice, so she guessed their nightly catharsis was doing her good. She thought maybe it was doing him good as well; he hardly ever tried to goad her into killing him anymore, and Mom said he was having a good time with his evening TV shows, even yelling at the screen when Dawson or Pacey did something he disapproved of, so she guessed they were both healing together. Or simultaneously. Or whatever.

She wondered why he had kissed her. And then she wondered why he hadn’t since.

Stupid confusing vampire.

At least with school out, she and Spike could really dive into the research. Giles didn’t know they were still working on how to get Angel and Drusilla back; he thought she was just suddenly really dedicated to the cause and trying to build up general demon knowledge – projecting his own interests onto Buffy, of course, but she didn’t bother to correct his misconception. Especially once she found out that “studious” slayers got all sorts of perks, like first pick of the donuts. (She always left Giles a jelly, in subtle thanks. Of course, sometimes Spike then mooched Giles’s jelly donut, but he had so few outlets for his evil nowadays that she let it slide. Though she did suggest to Xander, staunch procurer of the donuts, that the jelly-to-non-jelly donut ratio be increased. It’s not like there was a national jelly shortage or anything. It was a free country. They could all have jellies.)

Willow was finally making her way across the lawn, Oz in tow; she had that cautious-but-brilliant grin on her face that meant she had totally aced all her exams but wasn’t going to say anything until she found out how everyone else had done, because she didn’t like to rub it in.

Buffy saved her the trouble of asking. “I think the best study-buddy ever has earned her stripes,” she grinned. “Pretty sure I passed everything. Not bad for a gal who was a wanted fugitive not so long ago.”

“I knew you’d be okay, Buffy. You’ve been hitting the books really hard lately.” Willow smiled modestly. “I think I did all right too.” She leaned into Oz a little and he gave her a little half-hug.

Buffy looked away quickly. “Have you seen Xander?”

Willow gave Oz a speaking look and his hand dropped away. “I think he went somewhere with Cordelia.” Willow flushed slightly. “Um, on a date.”

“Oh.”

“So!” Willow’s voice was extra-cheery. “Did you want to go get some ice cream? Celebrate our freedom from the books?”

Buffy laughed. “What is this ‘freedom’ of which you speak? The books still own me every night. It’s just… different books. More ancient and demon-y.”

Willow frowned. “Is there another apocalypse? I thought things were slow. Didn’t you say things were slow?”

“No, no apocalypse. Just… working on a thing,” Buffy said lamely.

“Can I help?” Willow’s voice was eager, like she was already suffering from study-withdrawal and needed a quick fix.

“I guess,” Buffy said reluctantly. “Um, Spike’s been helping me out a lot.”

Willow’s face fell into lines of incredulity. “Buffy, you do realize you just used the words ‘Spike’ and ‘helping’ in the same sentence, right? A sentence without any negatives or noticeable irony?”

“I know.” Buffy sighed. “He knows a lot of demon languages, okay? And we’ve got a deal.”

“And you trust him?” Willow was clearly horrified.

“No! No, not at all.” Buffy hastened to say, waving her hands in front of her. “ _God,_ no! It’s just that in this particular case, we’ve got a… a mutual goal, that he wants as much as I do. I don’t trust him, not one bit, but he’s smart enough to do what’s in his own best interest. Right now, that’s helping me research.”

Willow narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “And what happens when you achieve your ‘mutual goal?’”

_He has lots of sex while I never have sex again,_ was Buffy’s first thought, which she immediately stuffed to the back of her brain, because it was disloyal to Angel and gross besides; out loud she said, “Life is going to be good again. You’ll see.”

***

Unlife was never going to be good again. He was sure of it.

Spike glowered at the book in front of him, as if by force of will alone he could convince the tiny, handwritten script to rearrange itself into an answer he liked better, but the gothic lettering stood firm in its resolve to thwart Spike, like a flourished, illuminated “FUCK YOU!” right in the middle of the vellum page, accents laboriously picked out in gold leaf.

He slammed the book shut. Another dead end. Weeks, _weeks_ they had spent sitting in the depressing library, every single night, reading and taking notes and conferring in whispers while the bloody watcher hovered around looking smug. And they still had chuff-all to show for it. Not even a bloody hint of a clue.

Leaving aside the antique relics, it was bloody infuriating that the modern publishing industry, which constantly churned out useless shite like self-help books and political memoirs and fucking Garfield compilations, couldn’t see its way clear to meeting Spike’s very real, very pressing need. Why the fuck had nobody put out a bloody “Dimensional Travel for Dummies” book? That book would sell a million fucking copies in its first week. Spike would write a fucking blurb for the back cover, if it helped him get Dru back, and then the infamous name “William the Bloody” would sell _another_ million fucking copies. This was a real failing of the modern world, and if he weren’t so determined to walk into the sun, he would do something about it.

The slayer was sitting across from him, eyebrows knit as she pretended to be able to understand Latin, and he turned his glare to her, jaw set. God, he hated her. All that fucking _compassion_ and full-of-herself _goodness_ and the way she fawned over fucking undeserving Angel and her hair and her eyes and her soft, soft lips and that incredible noise she had made in the back of her throat when… _Well_ , he couldn’t wait until he had Dru back and could get the fuck out of this bloody miserable sunny town and get back to fighting and fucking and savoring the blood of the innocent.

Buffy bit her plush lip in concentration, and he barely managed not to groan as his cock twitched in response.

_God,_ he hated her.

***

The sock – now sparkling clean, thanks to multiple enjoyable trips through the Summers washing machine – watched from the shadows of Buffy’s backpack as yet again Buffy and Spike failed to take advantage of the privacy of the book stacks, or even to play footsie under the huge oak table. Did it have to do everything itself?

Stealthily it wriggled under the table, keeping an eye out for the old guy who was puttering around being an implicit obstacle to the hot monkey-loving. There they were, four legs, close enough to touch and yet, inexplicably, not touching.

That situation just couldn’t go on, not if the sock had anything to say about it.

Well, not that it could _say_ anything, but it was getting pretty good at actions, which of course spoke louder than words, so in a metaphorical sense it was totally saying all sorts of profound things, and… The sock shook itself. No time to get distracted here. It was time for action.

It crept silently up the outside of Spike’s heavy boot, then carefully stretched itself out so that it could stroke the outsides of Buffy and Spike’s legs at the same moment.

Both legs jerked gratifyingly, then relaxed again, slightly closer to each other. The sock stretched out again, trying for a more leisurely, deliberate-seeming contact.

_Whoops!_ This time when they jerked, Spike’s booted foot landed on top of Buffy’s.

“Ow! Spike, did you kick me?” Buffy’s boot landed squarely on Spike’s shin in retaliation; the sock ducked hastily out of the way, wriggling back towards Buffy’s backpack, where it could hide safely under Buffy’s History book. _Oh, darnit._ The old guy was standing right in his path. The sock huddled nervously by the table leg.

“Fuck! I didn’t do a bloody thing, Slayer!”

There was the sound of a book slapping shut above the table; Buffy stood up, legs stiff with outrage. “That’s it, Spike.  Why are you being such an asshole tonight?”

The old guy spoke up, voice resigned. “If you’re going to argue, do it elsewhere, please. Some of us have actual meaningful research to do.”

“ _Fine!_ ” The sock peered around the edge of the table as Buffy stomped around its perimeter, pulling Spike to his feet.

“Oi!” Spike protested as she dragged him off into the stacks. The sock followed cautiously.

By the time it caught up to them, Buffy had Spike pinned up against one of the shelves, in a little dim alcove. “Spike, your attitude is not helping!” Buffy was railing, shaking him a little.

“Fuck you,” Spike growled back. “At least I can read more than one language. Have you even made it through one sentence of that book you’re working on?” Oddly, he didn’t try to break free. The sock looked at him more closely. Oh _HO_. Someone liked being shoved around. The sock rubbed its ribbing together in anticipation.

“I’m doing just fine!” Buffy sniffed. “I can recognize the word ‘Acathla’ and that’s all that matters at this point. Finding places where he’s mentioned.” She kept her voice low, glancing off to the side, as if to make sure nobody was listening. Of course, she totally missed the sock, down at floor level, watching with bated breath. Not that it breathed.

Spike grinned. “Miffed that I’ve got a better education than you, eh, Slayer?”

Buffy shook him again, pressing her body right up against his. “I’m not miffed,” she said angrily. “Whatever that is.”

Spike puffed out his chest, trying to seem casual about it, though the sock didn’t miss the way his eyes flared when he came into contact with Buffy’s breasts, or the way she leaned into that contact. This was _very_ promising! “Miffed. Pissed off. Irate. Infuriated. Enraged. In…”

Buffy interrupted him. “Oh, I’m that, all right. I’m really, really all of that.” She slid her body against his again, gasping.

Spike’s nostrils flared and his eyes fell to her lips, and her eyes started to flutter closed, and the sock watched intensely, wishing it had some popcorn and also that it was able to eat popcorn because this was _it_ , this was the moment, they were going to kiss and fall in love right here in the book stacks, and they were so, so close…

And a book that had been teetering on the shelf above them fell and hit Spike on the head, and then bounced onto Buffy’s head, and they both fell back in pain, glaring at each other as if the book had been a deliberate assault.

As they rubbed their heads and glared at each other and muttered uncomfortably, the sock sighed and started to make its way back to Buffy’s backpack. It should have known things wouldn’t work out so easily.

Making Buffy happy was _hard_.

As it wriggled beneath Buffy’s History textbook – as safe a place as any, since in weeks she had never removed it from her bag once – it promised itself another ride through the whites cycle, as reward for all its hard work today. The washing machine had turned out to be a lovely experience, glorious hot soapy water and then the soothing warm tumble of the dryer, accompanied by the delightful aromatherapy of the fabric softener sheet, and then afterwards it was so fluffy and white and warm, it could just drift off to sleep until the next day, ready to take up its noble mission again.

It dozed off, secure in the knowledge that it was on the right track.

***

Buffy couldn’t focus on the stupid books after all of that, whatever it had been, so she called it a night before ten, dragging a sullen Spike home and wheedling her mom into making more hot chocolate. Spike was morose again, poking disconsolately at his mini-marshmallows as they dissolved, and she was too shaken to try to snap him out of it tonight. Especially since he kept giving her dirty looks out of the corner of his eye, like something was her fault, and that was totally unfair, because she was totally not responsible for whatever that was that had happened.

What the hell _had_ happened?

But anyhow, after her mom had finished up the laundry and drunk a glass of wine and headed up to bed, Buffy nudged Spike with her elbow and jerked her head towards the basement, and he sighed and rinsed his mug out in the sink – Joyce had made it a condition of her continued provision of hot chocolate – and trudged towards the stairs.

When they got downstairs, though, Buffy felt uncertain again. Like she didn’t want to leave him alone in the darkness, but at the same time, she didn’t want to stay. She busied herself pulling the dry laundry out of the dryer and piling it loosely in a basket to fold later, while Spike wandered the perimeter of the room, lip curling as he looked at her old box of cheerleading trophies, the dusty toolbox, the plastic bins of blankets.

After a bit, Buffy turned and realized he was standing just a few feet away, eyes shadowed, watching her.

“What?” she said defensively.

“What are we going to do?’ Spike’s voice was low, uncertain.

“I don’t know. Maybe get in a good cry before bed?” Buffy’s voice was light, but she did kind of want to cry, though she wasn’t even thinking about Angel right now, and she really wanted Spike to cry with her. She needed him to…

“No, not tonight, I mean…What if we can’t do it? Get them back.”

“I haven’t really thought about it.” She had, but she didn’t like the thoughts that came up, so she preferred to pretend she hadn’t thought them.

“Stake me.” His voice was urgent, eyes wild.

“No! I’m not going to…”

“Look, I’ve been playing along with your little save-Spike project, haven’t I? Because you promised I’d have Dru back. If we can’t get her back… I’m done.”

“I won’t stake you. God, Spike, how can you even ask me…”

“It has to be you.”

“No.”

“Promise me.”

“No way.”

He punched her in the jaw then; she was so surprised that she didn’t even try to block it, slamming into the shelves behind her. A box of Christmas decorations fell to the ground with a tinkle of broken glass. “Promise me,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “Promise me you’ll stake me.”

She punched him right back. “I am not going to stake you, Spike.”

He growled in response, leaping at her, and they fought bitterly on the concrete floor, leaving a good dent in the front of the dryer and knocking some old paint cans down. Finally Buffy had the upper hand, pinning Spike down to the floor, and they glared at each other for a long moment, eyes hot. She waited for the inevitable dissolve into tears, like always, wanted it, because she needed… she needed…

Spike’s hand crashed into her hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her down, and then he was kissing her angrily, and she melted right into him, sliding her body all over his on the floor, and it felt right, better than the crying, better than anything ever, his cool, insistent tongue and his hard, angry lips and his fingers, gentle and encouraging… She rolled onto her back, pulling him on top of her, loving his weight…

…Which was suddenly gone, as he pushed away from her. “No,” he said brokenly. “This is wrong. It’s wrong.”

He turned his back on her, stalking over to his cot and clapping his manacles on himself. “If we don’t get Dru back, you’re going to stake me,” he said harshly. He flung himself down on the cot, facing the wall, back rigid and uncompromising.

Buffy stood up shakily, nodding. “Okay,” she said softly, then turned and ran up the stairs.

The sock, sleeping happily at the back of the basket of clean whites, didn’t see a thing.

 

End Chapter 3

 

 


	4. A Sock with a Scheme

A month later, the sock was still baffled. What on earth had happened?

Everything it knew about human relationships told it that Spike and Buffy had been mere inches away from The Kiss of True Love that night in the stacks. (Not to mention other, more intimate acts of True Love that it was too embarrassed to even think about, though it had been looking forward to watching.) And then the very next morning… nothing.

Buffy had started treating Spike with the cold disdain usually reserved for door-to-door salesmen, while Spike had withdrawn into a bitter silence, only coming up from his basement for research sessions at the library – which he spent sitting at his own tiny table in the corner, communicating through sharp negative shakes of his head. Buffy delivered mugs of blood to the basement regularly, but silently. Spike refused offerings of hot chocolate.

And every night, the two wept bitterly in their separate beds.

The sock had to do something. It had invested far too much time and effort (two whole months! Miles of travel!) into this particular relationship to start looking for another attractive evil vampire for Buffy now. Buffy was just going to have to suck it up and start getting along with Spike again.

The sock had some excellent ideas. It was time to put them into action.

***

Buffy felt stuck.

It wasn’t just the research, which continued to go nowhere, though she was spending more time now with her nose in books than she had ever spent on ordinary school. (Giles was _ecstatic_.) She had been prepared for the project to take forever, since she couldn’t let Giles or Willow in on the real goal of her studies, not until the very last minute. She had even been prepared for failure, intellectually at least. She knew trying to get Angel back was a long shot, she had known from the beginning; that was why she’d invited Spike in on it, because it would have been impossible alone, and a partner brought the odds up to merely improbable.

She just didn’t know how to move forward. She was mired down in her grief, like quicksand. The more she struggled against it, the faster she sank.

She had tried to find someone to talk to about it, but even though she had mostly forgiven her mom, she still didn’t trust her, not enough to talk about Angel, not enough to share her loss. Especially when she hadn’t liked Buffy being with Angel in the first place. Willow was willing to talk, and completely sympathetic, but somehow she always managed to bring things around to the spell again, how amazing it had been, how powerful Willow had felt, and Buffy felt like a real jerk, trying to make it about herself after that, so she just fell silent, nodding and smiling and empty. She couldn’t talk about Angel to Giles, not after what evil-Angel had done to him, not after Miss Calendar, and Xander was even worse, because – as he was fond of pointing out – he hadn’t liked Angel even before he lost his soul. Cordelia… Buffy sometimes thought Cordelia might listen, which was weird, because Cordy was as self-centered as they came, but part of her self-centeredness revolved around an image of herself as a Good Friend, and she was a lot less awful than she used to be – but of course she was dating Xander, and that meant she would probably talk to Xander, because Cordelia had absolutely zero filter between her brain and her mouth, and so it was just like talking to Xander directly, so no.

The only person she could possibly talk to was Spike. And he wouldn’t speak to her at all.

It was all because she didn’t want to stake him, and how messed up was that? That he was cutting her off when they needed each other, just because she didn’t want to kill him in cold blood? She had come to terms with the fact that whenever she staked a vampire, she was ending the existence of a sentient being, because she had to. That was her job. And she had tried to stake Spike at least a dozen times, back when he didn’t want to be staked, when he was trying to kill her right back. Why was the thought of staking him now, when he was begging for it, so awful?

Because they were allies.

Because he had held her while she cried.

Because _she_ had held _him_ while _he_ cried.

Because her mom had fixed him hot chocolate.

Because she knew now that he liked mini-marshmallows in his hot chocolate. And hot wings and onion rings and chili dogs and those extra-spicy homemade tamales you could sometimes buy from little old Mexican ladies in the grocery store parking lot. Because he liked food, more than anyone she had ever known, even though he didn’t need it.

Because he had kissed her.

Because she kind of wanted him to kiss her again.

Because she _really_ wanted…

Oh, god, she was demented.

She watched his evening mug of blood spinning in the microwave, going around and around and around, and she wondered if he would ignore her again tonight, and it hurt, because she knew, she _knew_ he was going through the same thing she was, and he had even fewer people to talk to than she did, and it wasn’t fair that he wouldn’t talk to her anymore.

She cupped the warm mug in her hands and brought it down the basement stairs, watching out of the corner of her eye as he sighed and sat up and waited for her, looking off into the corner, deliberately not looking at her, and suddenly she was furious, incandescent with rage, and she serenely set the mug of blood on top of the dryer, walked over to him, and slapped him.

The force of her blow knocked his head to the side, and he kept it there, tilting his head just enough to glare up at her. “Got a problem, Slayer?” His voice was even, cold, and that just enraged her more.

“Get up and fight me,” she bit out, fists clenching.

“Why?” His voice was calmly amused, and she grabbed him by the front of his stupid black T-shirt and dragged him to his feet.

“ _Because,_ ” she said, and threw him across the room.

He rolled to his feet, bouncing a bit, grinning, and she grinned back, because _this_ was what she needed, and when he threw a sharp punch at her ribcage, she blocked it and countered with a jab at his jaw. That rocked him back on his heels, and he growled something incoherent, exploding with a powerful backhand; Buffy ducked – his hand passed through her hair – and took his legs out with a leg sweep, but he had been expecting it, rolling right up to launch like a cannonball at her stomach, and they crashed together into the side of the stairs. Buffy shook him off and flipped to her feet while he rose malevolently into a deep crouch, and for a moment they just looked at each other, teeth bared, and then they both attacked at the same moment, and neither of them connected, but they were connecting now, they were together, and as they whirled and kicked and punched their eyes met again, and suddenly Buffy was crying, she couldn’t see, and Spike caught her and eased her down until they were sitting on the edge of the cot, arms wrapped around each other, and he was crying too, cold tears seeping into the fabric of her shirt as his hands bunched fabric at her waist.

This time, she was the one to turn her tear-streaked face to his, lips seeking, hands planted firmly on his wet cheeks. He started to pull away, and she urged him back, whispering gently, “It’s okay. It doesn't count. It’s just right now. Kiss me,” and he groaned and sank his hands into her hair and kissed her back, and she cried harder, cried and cried, like a dam had broken inside her. “Kiss me, Spike,” she murmured against his lips. “Kiss _me_.” And he did.

He kissed her lips, sweet tender sips of kisses, and kissed her overflowing eyes, and kissed the tears off her cheeks, and kissed the very center of her forehead, and dipped his head down and kissed her right _there_ , where her pulse thrummed in her throat, and then at last her lips again, lazy and open-mouthed and comforting, and Buffy kissed him back, anywhere she could reach, even silly places like the top of his ear and his temple and his hair and his nose.

When his lips brushed against hers again, she said, “You’re an asshole.”

He laughed against her, licking her chin. “Yeah. So?”

She caught his lip between her teeth. “Don’t be an asshole.”

He was shaking, hands trembling against her waist. “Fuck you.” He ran his blunt teeth down her throat, and she clenched her hands in his hair.

There were a dozen things she could say to that, innuendos and insults and flat-out invitations, but she wasn’t ready, she was terrified, so she just kissed him again, her thumb at the corner of his mouth. He turned his head to kiss her thumb, gently, then sucked it into his mouth, and she just watched, breathless, as he caught it between his teeth.

“None of this counts,” she whispered.

He nodded, nipping delicately at her wrist.

“This is just for right now,” she insisted.

He kissed the inside of her elbow, dark eyes meeting hers briefly.

“I hate you,” she moaned.

“I hate you too,” he murmured into the hollow of her throat.

“Good,” she muttered. “Kiss me more.”

He obliged.

***

The sock had outdone itself.

Last night, instead of watching Spike spend another miserable evening alone, the sock had slithered up to Joyce’s room, waiting until she was fast asleep before booting up her computer.

The internet was _awesome_.

It hadn’t taken long for the sock to figure out search engines, and even less time after that to do what it needed to do. Inputting the delivery address and Joyce’s credit card information was nothing; the sock had grown nimble through weeks of navigating the Summers residence. It had taken care of other preparations a few days before, when Joyce had dragged Buffy to the mall for some back-to-school shopping.  Tonight, Joyce had another opening at the gallery, a wine and cheese affair that she expected to run late. She would be gone for _hours_.

The sock was pretty sure it wouldn’t need more than thirty minutes to bring its plans to fruition.

The shoes were off, now. The sock was serious. It was going to get Buffy and Spike together if it killed it.

And it was a sock. Socks were pretty darn hard to kill.

***

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Buffy’s mom had plenty of concern in her voice, but she was checking her earrings in the hall mirror as she spoke, and was obviously not planning on delaying her departure, even if Buffy suddenly came down with the grippe.

Buffy had no idea what “the grippe” was, but it sounded really dramatic and deadly.

“I’ll be fine,” Buffy insisted, giving her mom a quick hug. “You go eat your overpriced cheese.”

“Overpriced is right,” Joyce said, rolling her eyes. “If I’d had time to make up the hors d’oeuvres myself, I would have saved a fortune.”

“Yes, but you would have gotten cheese on your classy black dress,” Buffy pointed out.

“There is that.” Joyce smiled gratefully at Buffy. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

“I’m fine. Really.” Buffy sighed. “I’ll order a pizza for dinner, watch some martial arts movie with Spike, and get to bed at a decent hour. Promise.”

Joyce looked at her shrewdly. “Martial arts?”

Buffy shrugged. “That, or horror. Spike likes the decapitations.”

Joyce shuddered dramatically. “Girls and their boyfriends…”

They both froze at that.

“Spike is not my boyfriend,” Buffy finally said, cautiously.

“I know, dear,” Joyce said quickly. “It was just, you know, Friday, and movie, and…”

“I get it,” Buffy smiled, reassuringly. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

Joyce fussed for a bit more, but she had a business to run, and soon she was backing her SUV out of the driveway.

Buffy sighed. She _wished_ she were spending Friday night with a boyfriend, like a normal girl, instead of with an evil vampire who was really incredibly good at kissing, or would be if the kissing part had happened in the real world, instead of the grief-coping-timeout world. But at least in the real world he was talking to her again, and things were back to as normal as she was ever going to get.

Still, it was Friday night. She zipped up the stairs to change into something… not more comfortable. Just different. Different was good.

Different, and maybe a little bit sexy.

Something red.

Spike liked red.

***

The sock waited until Buffy was upstairs before putting the final stages of its plans into effect.

It flicked the lights off with a casual twitch of its heel.

Huddled around the lighter it had liberated from a nearby gas station, it cautiously flicked the wheel until a flame burst forth, then carefully lit the scented candles scattered about the room. That was the dangerous part, since the sock itself was highly flammable; although it had taken the precaution of dampening itself in the sink ahead of time, it still heaved a sigh of relief when the room was moodily candlelit.

It wriggled over to the VCR. It knew that for Movie Night Romance, the choice of movie was key, so it had decided ahead of time on “Dirty Dancing,” which was both sexy and socially aware. Of course, once it had made it to the mall – having hitched a ride on the bumper of Buffy’s mom’s SUV – it had decided the Blockbuster on the corner was just too far for it to travel, and had settled for the closer, bunker-like business with the “XXX VIDEOS” neon sign on its stucco side. The sock had no idea what XXX meant, but once it wriggled its way inside, it had had no problem finding the shelves of videos, and conveniently “Dirty Dancing” was right there on the bottom shelf. Well, the box said “Dirtier Dancing,” but given the sock’s general physical limitations, it figured an unauthorized sequel was good enough. It had dragged the video right out the door and tucked it behind the license plate for transportation back to Revello Drive. Now, it tenderly tucked the video into the VCR, just enough that the slightest push would start the movie playing, and wriggled right under the VCR, so it could give said push at the appropriate moment.

The sock took a moment to regard the scene it had arranged. Perfect. All that remained were the final deliveries, and the stage would be set.

Buffy didn’t stand a chance.

She was going to fall in love with an evil vampire tonight.

***

Buffy came down the stairs to a dim, candle-lit living room and frowned for a moment, but she knew vampires had weird ideas about nights out, so she shrugged and opened the door to the basement.

“Spike, I’m going to start the movie in a minute,” she yelled. “Get your ass up here!”

The doorbell rang and she frowned again, because she hadn’t gotten around to ordering the pizza yet. She opened the door to… a man in a tuxedo?

“Living room or dining room?” he sniffed, in a way that indicated he made more in tips each day than her yearly allowance.

“Um, living room?” Buffy said tentatively.

The man snapped his fingers, and a trio of tuxedoed waitstaff bustled in, arranging a pair of covered plates with wineglasses and an assortment of bread on the coffee table. Buffy gaped at them as they fussed over the china and arranged the folded cloth napkins just so.

When they bustled out, the tuxedoed man handed her a note and bowed obsequiously. “Bon appetit!” he declared, and was gone.

Buffy looked at the note, which had “Romantic Dinner Solutions” printed along the top; it noted that a bin had been placed outside their door for discreet place setting pickup the next day, and had a circled total cost at the bottom that made Buffy’s eyes bug out. The name on the invoice was Joyce Summers.

Buffy had no idea what she was supposed to think. Was her mom trying to tell her something?

Spike suddenly appeared at her side. “Feeling posh tonight?” he murmured. His voice ran up her spine like an electrical shock.

“It’s just movie night,” she replied brusquely, stomping over to sit on the couch. Spike shrugged and took a seat at the opposite end.

The covered dishes turned out to contain oysters on the half-shell, which Buffy had never eaten before in her life; she stared at the shells helplessly.

At his end of the couch, Spike made an approving noise and picked one up; Buffy watched him out of the corner of her eye as he tipped it right into his mouth. Was that how you were supposed to eat them? Or was that just a Spike thing? She picked up a piece of bread and started shredding it.

Spike picked up another shell and paused, looking at her speculatively. “Are you going to eat yours?” he said in a hopeful tone of voice.

“Of course I am!” Buffy said bravely. “I just…”

She watched as Spike sucked up the contents of his second oyster shell. _Oh, god._

Needing something to distract herself from what Spike had just done with his lips, she picked up one of her own oysters, looking at it dubiously.

Spike laughed. “Need help, love?”

Buffy rolled her eyes, hoping she looked like she ate expensive seafood all the time. “No!” Buffy put the oyster to her lips and sucked it up, trying to emulate Spike. Which she realized moments later was possibly a bad idea, because picturing his lips and trying to match her lips to his and then feeling the oyster sliding into her mouth was somehow more carnal than just kissing him. And then she looked at his mouth and wanted to kiss him. Even without the fighting-and-crying buildup.

They weren’t allowed to do that, were they? She didn’t think so. They needed to be under the flag of a crying-truce to kiss. Like last night.

That had been a really good cry.

She looked away from Spike and ate another oyster.

***

The sock watched avidly from under the VCR. Phase One of its cunning plan was going very well; Spike and Buffy had eaten the Expensive Aphrodisiac Meal and were giving each other surreptitious glances that were obvious signs of heightened physical awareness.

Time for Phase Two.

The sock cautiously extended its cuff and pushed the videotape the rest of the way into the VCR.

***

Buffy jumped as the TV came to life and the familiar opening chorus of “Time of my Life” blared out. “Oh. Movie.”

Spike frowned. “Did you sit on the remote?”

“I must have.” Buffy watched as the camera on-screen panned across a wide shot of a family camp in the woods, then glanced over at Spike. “This movie okay? I don’t think it has any decapitations…”

With a shrug, Spike settled deeper into his corner of the couch. “It’s all right.” He sounded secretly pleased; Buffy supposed that if Dawson’s Creek was his favorite show, Dirty Dancing wasn’t too far off his tastes.

“I usually cry when I watch this movie,” she said suddenly, looking off towards the dining room.

“Is that a fact?” Spike’s voice was dry.

“Just letting you know. In advance. There might be crying.” She looked back at him, shyly. He was regarding her speculatively, fingers twitching.

“Huh.”

“So, um, truce?”

“Thought we already had a truce.”

“No. Like… like when we’re crying. A crying truce.” She felt herself turning red. “The kind where nothing counts.”

“Ohhhhh.” Spike dragged it out, grinning at her evilly. “You want to _cry_ , is what you’re saying.”

Buffy stuck her chin out belligerently. “This is a very emotional movie for me. Got a problem with that?”

He looked away suddenly towards the TV. “No, no problem.” He frowned. “Huh. Thought there was a whole bit with a watermelon before we got to this.”

Buffy didn’t comment on the fact that Spike actually knew “Dirty Dancing” well enough to spot a missing scene; she looked over at the screen. It was the dance studio, and Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey were crawling towards each other on their hands and knees.

She looked again. “I don’t think that’s Patrick Swayze,” Buffy said doubtfully, tilting her head and squinting. The music wasn’t right, either. Wasn’t this supposed to be the cutesy “C’Mere Loverboy” scene? There was something jazzy and seventies going on instead.

The woman on-screen suddenly ripped open her blouse, exposing huge, bouncy breasts. Spike sat up abruptly, laughing. “ _Fuck._ ”

Buffy squeaked, pulling her feet up under her. “That’s _definitely_ not Jennifer Grey.”

The soundtrack shifted to the traditional _bow-chicka-wow-wow_ as not-Jennifer-Grey pulled not-Patrick-Swayze right into her ample bosom, moaning dramatically.

Spike grinned over at her. “You usually _cry_ during this movie, do you?”

Buffy threw a pillow at him and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, god. Where did this even come from?” She should get up and stop the tape – God, did it belong to her _mother_? – but she kept on watching through her fingers, secretly fascinated. Not-Patrick-Swayze was doing something really interesting with his tongue, and she suddenly pictured it being Spike’s tongue and her own (considerably-less-ample) breasts, and the thought froze her in place.

She was suddenly glad she had flown the flag of the this-doesn’t-count truce well in advance, because watching porn with Spike definitely was not an experience that belonged in the real world. Especially since he was regarding it with the same casual look on his face as he wore when watching his prime-time dramas and soaps. She half-expected him to start offering the on-screen couple unsolicited relationship advice.

When not-Swayze’s pants came off, her mouth fell open. She risked a glance over at Spike, thinking he had to be shocked too, but instead he looked a trifle smug. Thoughts of just why _that_ might be swirled naughtily around in her head, and she whipped her gaze back to the TV screen, where not-Jennifer was starting to show that she did, indeed, have dance training of some sort.

A few minutes later, Buffy giggled nervously as the couple on screen merged in a pretzel configuration. “Oh, I don’t think that’s even physically possible.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Course it is.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“And I’m saying it is.” When Buffy gave him a disbelieving glance, Spike sighed dramatically. “Here, let me show you.” He tugged abruptly at her legs and arms; Buffy squeaked as Spike positioned her all pretzel-like, settling himself comfortably in the middle of it all. ”See?”

Buffy looked at Spike’s face, suddenly very close to hers, and flushed bright red. He stared at her in sudden shocked realization before they each shoved at the other, disentangling their limbs. They quickly retreated to their separate sides of the couch, eyes glued to the heaving flesh-pretzel on the screen. Buffy’s mind was racing, along with her breath and her heartbeat and every inch of her body.

_This doesn’t count_.

She stole a sidelong glance at Spike, who was watching the movie with such deliberate focus that she knew he was as aware of her as she was of him. She knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was turned on right now; even through two pairs of jeans his erection had been obvious, especially when he had ground it right up against her. She wondered suddenly if it was from watching not-Jennifer-Grey, or if it was her.

She wanted to ask.

_Truce_.

The couple on the screen shifted positions, and Buffy took a deep breath.

“I don’t think that one’s possible, either,” she said softly, watching Spike.

He turned his head slightly, regarding her through his eyelashes. “You don’t, do you?”

Buffy shook her head.

“Pretty sure it is, pet.”

“Prove it.”

***

The sock glanced out from where it had been grooving along with the music, and sighed. How clueless could those two get? Here it had set up the perfect date, and instead of kissing, they were doing yoga.

Clearly it was going to have to bring out the big guns next time.

It wondered how hard it would be to get a copy of “Titanic”…

***

Twenty-three positions later, Buffy was shaking, and she could see that Spike was, too, even though they were both still fully clothed. Neither of them had broken the polite fiction that they were merely having an intellectual discussion regarding the realism of the patently-unrealistic movie, keeping their actual words neutral and noncommittal. Like right now.

Buffy let her head fall back against the arm of the couch, biting her lip. “No,” she said conversationally. “I don’t think this is it. See, her toes are pointed at a different angle. Maybe sixty degrees?”

Spike laughed shakily, pressing his thumbs into the backs of her knees, shifting her thighs around his hips. “Like this?” He gave an experimental thrust against her, denim growling against denim. “This angle would account for that sound she’s making.”

Buffy pulsed against him. “Almost. That’s, um, sixty-five degrees.” Spike shifted her again, with a bit more grinding. “Oh, too far, that’s fifty-eight.” Another shift and thrust. Buffy couldn’t think of another number in the vicinity of sixty, so she nodded reluctantly. “Ok, I think that’s it.”

“You sure?” Spike ground against her again. “So, what’s the verdict?”

“You’re right. It’s possible,” Buffy said breathily. _Also amazing_.

Spike politely folded Buffy’s limbs back to her side of the couch, and they both resumed watching the movie. “So,” Spike said after a bit. “How many was that?”

“Twenty-four. With twenty-two possible, one definitely _not_ possible, and one that might be possible but we don’t have room in here to do a lift.”

Spike shrugged. “Could go outside.”

“I am pretty sure the neighbors would complain.”

“Pity, that.”

“Time of your Life” was playing again, and Buffy was suddenly sad, because it looked like the film was winding down, and in the meantime she was all wound up, and when the movie was over technically so was their truce, and they hadn’t kissed once, hadn’t done a lot of things she really wanted to do. Meanwhile, the couple on the screen seemed to be done with the acrobatics and were into the romantic end game.

Well, romantic end game would do.

Buffy looked at Spike sidelong, daring. “Ok, now I _know_ that one’s not possible.”

Spike leaned towards her, eyes dark, not even looking at the screen now. “That’s the missionary position, love. As basic as they come.”

Buffy sank a little lower into the couch. “Show me anyway.” Her voice was the barest whisper.

He oozed over her, tenderly pulling her down until she was flat on her back, a pillow under her head, and lay flat on top of her, tugging her thighs out on either side of his hips, his elbows to either side of her head. “See? Possible.”

Buffy looked up at him, breathing hard. “Why do they call it the missionary position?”

“Dunno.” He slid his body against hers minutely. “Does it make you feel like converting?”

“Converting to what?” Buffy shifted beneath him, licking her lips.

Spike shrugged, but didn’t answer, instead sliding his hand down the outside of her thigh to the bend of her knee. “Technically, missionary position includes anything where the man’s on top and you’re face to face.” He had adopted the pedantic tone of a lecturer, though there was a slight betraying quiver under it all. He leaned down and brushed his nose against hers. “But there’s lots of variations.” He tugged at her knees, urging her legs up to wrap around his waist. “This one gives you a lot of control, can use your thighs to make it harder or faster.” He tucked his arms inside her legs, hooking his thumbs under her knees and sliding them up to his shoulders. “Can get a bit deeper like this. Not my favorite, though, having your legs all in the way.” He took her by the knees again, pushing them towards her shoulders and a little bit outwards. ”This is a lovely way to fuck. All open and unfurled, like a flower.” He rolled against her, delicious hard friction, and nuzzled in against her throat. “Bet you’d scream,” he whispered into her pulse, and that was it for her, she was _done_ , and she clutched his hair and dragged him up to her mouth and kissed him, winding her arms and legs all around him in a close approximation of Position Number Twelve.

Spike groaned and kissed her back, running his hands all over her thighs and ass, and she reached down and grabbed his hands, pushing them up under her soft red shirt, and he laughed against her lips and obligingly cupped her breasts, thumbs rubbing her nipples through the lace of her bra.

He sat back and looked down at her, all angled shadows in the candlelight, and then he pushed her shirt up until it bunched at her armpits and flicked open the front opening of her bra and spread it wide, eyes flaring.

Buffy looked up at him shyly. “They’re not very big,” she said hesitantly.

Spike shrugged and curved his big hands around her breasts, eyes unfocused. “Feel all right to me,” he breathed, and then he was bending down and his tongue curled around one nipple and she made a noise like she’d never heard before, because it was _wonderful_ , and then she heard her mom’s keys jingling at the door.

She shoved Spike back to his side of the couch, hastily doing up her bra and tugging her shirt into place and sitting up on her end of the couch, trying to look bored and not at all like she had been watching porn and kissing Spike. He, in turn, was suddenly very interested in the TV Guide that had been on the end table.

While they had been kissing, the video had ended and rewound; the TV was showing nothing but static.

Truce over.

_Damn_.

***

The sock woke up at the sound of the door opening. Whoa, had it fallen asleep? It had really worn itself out, lighting all those candles… It glared at Buffy and Spike, who were still sitting on opposite ends of the couch. Not snuggling, like they should have been doing. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” Those words had been _scientifically proven_ to melt even the hardest of hearts. Didn’t Buffy and Spike have any romance in their souls?

Oh, wait, it knew the answer to that one. Spike didn’t even have a soul. Maybe that was the problem.

Anyhow, the sock was disappointed. All that hard work, wasted and unappreciated. Not even one tiny smooch. Did it have to handcuff them together? The sock started to ponder the logistics of the manacles downstairs…

Joyce’s keys jingled onto the table by the door. “Buffy, what is going on?”

Buffy looked up at her mom, confused. “What’s going… I thought you were the one who set this up?”

Joyce flipped on the light switch. “Why would I light candles all over the living room?” She made a sound of dismay. “And without any sort of holder… The wax better not have ruined the finish of that table, young lady.”

“And how was the gallery, Joyce?” Spike’s voice was deliberately bright as he walked around the coffee table to block Joyce’s view of the television.

Joyce peered past him. “Are those _oyster shells_? And _wine_?”

Buffy stood up next to Spike, frowning. “Mom, don’t have a cow. You’re the one that ordered us dinner.”

Joyce folded her arms. “I didn’t order anything! Especially not _oysters_!”

“No, mom, look, they brought a receipt…” Buffy handed her mother a printed sheet of paper.

Joyce let out a little shriek. “Oh my _god_. Buffy, this meal is coming out of your allowance.”

“Mom, I didn’t order it! I just opened the door and they brought it in!” Buffy wrung her hands. “You can’t take it out of my allowance! That’s, like, _months_ of allowance! Almost a year!”

“Well, I can’t imagine who else might have…” She trailed off and she and Buffy both turned to look at Spike.

He drew himself up in offense. “What, someone makes illicit use of a credit card and you automatically blame the evil vampire in the household? That’s evil-discrimination, that is.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Though in most cases, probably a good guess. But not this time.”

As the argument continued, the sock casually tugged the videotape out of the VCR and slid it and its box under the TV stand. No sense leaving more evidence around.

It wondered if it was too late to cancel the order of boutique laundry detergent currently on its way from France. It had tried so hard to resist, but the ad had been very persuasive, with that very attractive stocking lounging like a French postcard, and of course the sock had been starting to feel a little dry at the heel. It had been the sock’s planned reward for a job well done.

It shrugged. _Eh._ That could come out of Buffy’s allowance, too.

She owed it one, after all its hard work on her behalf.

The sock went back to sleep.

 

End Chapter 4

 


	5. A Sock at a Loss

The summer had settled into a beautiful rhythm; Buffy didn’t want it to end.

Buffy would sleep late, hearing her mother’s preparations for work vaguely as she slept on, eventually getting up for a shower just before lunchtime. She would fix herself a sandwich or a salad and heat up a mug of blood for Spike and bring it downstairs, where she would unchain him and they would sit on the edge of the bed, consuming their meals silently but companionably. Then they would race to the nearest sewer entrance and take the underground path to the school library, entering through the stacks.

Giles was usually waiting there – he was old and liked to get up early – and they would settle in to research. After much eye-rolling and a few sarcastic jibes, Giles had agreed to move one of the good tables out of the direct sunlight from the windows so that Buffy and Spike could work together until dark. Sometimes Willow helped, sometimes Xander and Cordelia showed up, but mostly it was just Buffy and Spike.

Sometimes she would kiss him in the shadows of the stacks. When she couldn’t wait.

They would walk home so that Buffy could have dinner with her mom – Spike joined in most nights, for lack of anything better to do – and then they would head out on patrol. Spike had bitched about how bored he was at one point, especially since most of his shows were in summer reruns, and one night she had offered to take him with her, as long as he didn’t double-cross her. Much to her surprise, he had not only not stabbed her in the back, he had saved her bacon when a smarter-than-usual vamp had tried to sneak up in her blind spot. She still didn’t trust him, not completely, but he at least seemed to be taking their alliance seriously, and so they patrolled together, and it was… nice. She didn’t feel like she had to protect him, like when the other Scoobies helped out. It was really nice.

Then they would come home, wait for Joyce to go to bed, and make out to the swish-and-hum of the washing machine.

They had rules, of course. Lines that couldn’t be crossed. Bridges too far. All of their rules were unspoken, though, negotiated in a subtle dance of exploratory forays and gentle refusals, gradually settling into a comfortable equilibrium.

Kissing was a given, and after a while they had determined that anything above the waist was fair game for the kissage, which was fine by Buffy, because as far as she was concerned Spike’s lips needed to be on her breasts as often as possible. He had a fantastically talented tongue. (She sometimes wondered what his tongue would feel like on other parts of her, to the point of elaborate imaginings when she was back in her own bed, but he had never tried to dip lower than her waist, and she was too shy to ask.)

Shirts were disposable – Spike had A Thing for the reveal, and Buffy loved the look in his eyes every time she pulled her shirt over her head – but pants stayed on. At least, Spike’s did. Buffy had tested this one a few times, trying jeans and slacks and skirts of different lengths, and Spike always managed to get his hands right where she wanted them – he had sworn for a minute straight the time she had worn a miniskirt with no panties – but the second she laid a hand on his belt buckle, he always gently lifted it away. “Dru,” he’d said once, and she had understood.

He had elaborated one night, when they were lying side-by-side on his cot, gasping and dizzy after he had done something indescribable with his fingers that had literally made her scream – she had always thought that was just a hyperbolic expression, but apparently not. Good thing they were in the basement.

“Vampires aren’t usually faithful,” he’d said quietly, stroking her bicep absently. “Part of the deal, when you’re turned. You don’t care anymore for the strictures of society, the trappings of civilization. Fidelity. Relationships. Family bonds.” He had fallen silent then for a moment, pulling her a little closer before continuing. “Dru has even fewer ties to the world than most. Angel took them all away, killed her family and her friends, and then when she ran away to a convent, he slaughtered them all, every one of them. He drove her mad. So she just goes where the demon leads her, yeah?”

Buffy had nodded against his bare chest.

“She loves me,” Spike had said, voice determined. “She loves me, but she doesn’t know how to stay true. So I always stayed true for the both of us.” He shrugged, settling his arm around Buffy more securely. “She probably doesn’t even care, yeah? Dunno if she even notices. But there are things I always save for Dru, because it matters to me.”

Buffy had curled into him then, wrapping her arms around his waist, squeezing tight, because that was really sweet, even if it wasn’t about her, and she guessed it shouldn’t matter that it wasn’t about her, because she was totally in love with Angel.

Except…

She couldn’t ever do this with Angel. Couldn’t lie half-naked in bed talking, couldn’t risk that whatever they were doing was close enough to Perfect Happiness that she would turn him evil again, couldn’t risk her friends and family and the world again. When she finally got Angel back, body and soul, she might as well be entering a convent. And it would be worth it, of course it would be worth it, she loved him with a perfect forever love, but… there wasn’t any point in saving anything for him, because he wouldn’t be able to accept it.

As far as sex was concerned, this was all she would ever have.

The next night, she had locked Spike into his manacles and then stood just out of reach, silently stripping off every article of clothing until she was completely naked, watching his eager eyes the whole time, and then stepped forward into his embrace.

She wasn’t saving anything.

She was going to spend it _all_.

***

The sock was running out of ideas.

Every night, it slipped into the washing machine for a bath, wondering just where it was going wrong. It swirled around through the rinse cycle, trying to come up with new and improved cunning plans to make the love magic happen. But no matter what it tried, every day Buffy and Spike just ate and researched and patrolled. Like they didn’t even notice the UST between them. Like they didn’t even want to be happy.

What was up with that?

The sock had been trying, it really had. It had tried _so hard_.

It had waited until they were in the same room and then locked them in, multiple times, but as it turned out it was hard to find a door in the modern world that actually locked from the outside, and they always just shrugged and unlocked the door and left. The sock kept hoping against hope that they would encounter a walk-in freezer, or a bank vault, something with a lock on the outside, but no such luck.

The sock had made an attempt at writing poetry that it could pretend was a secret love note from one to the other, but it had quickly learned two things: one, that its handwriting was atrocious, looking more like the scrawl of a kindergartener than a grownup, and two, that poetry was really hard to write. Even when it snuck into Joyce’s room and tried to type something up on the computer, it got all caught up in trying to find rhymes, and worrying about meter, and the eventual results were unmistakably _bad_. It debated using one of its less-mediocre completed works at one point, reasoning that neither Buffy nor Spike seemed like they would be much good at the wordsmithing anyhow and it was the emotion behind the poem that really mattered, but in the end, it was just too ashamed.

It had tried setting the mood, lugging a boom box down to the basement – _that_ had taken hours – and popping in a CD of high-quality love ballads, but Spike had quickly demonstrated a complete lack of musical taste, pulling the “Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits” CD out and breaking it in half. (The sock had pouted for a couple of days after that, because Spike hadn’t even waited for “Mandy” to come on, the Philistine.)

It had even spent a few days avidly watching the Weather Channel, hoping for a rainy day that it could somehow exploit, figuring out a way to get the couple stranded under an awning or something, or at least force them to share an umbrella, but Sunnydale was having a very sunny summer, so that was a no go as well.

Seriously, how had the human race not died out long before this, with it being so hard to get two people who so obviously wanted each other to kiss already? Not that Spike and Buffy could procreate, the sock amended grumpily, but the principle was the same.

The sock was at a complete loss. It had resorted to watching soap operas over Spike’s shoulder, desperately trying to glean strategies and scenarios for inspiring the loving, but nothing seemed quite right.

It had even, on a particularly desperate night, hitched a ride in the pocket of Spike’s duster when they went on patrol, hoping to scout out another evil vampire lover for Buffy, since Spike obviously wasn’t working out, but every time they had come across a likely prospect, either Buffy or Spike had staked it before the sock could do a thing.

How was the sock supposed to find Buffy hot vampire love if she kept killing all the vampires?

Now it tumbled in the dryer, its thoughts turning over and over in its head. ( _Oh, hey, was that a scream?_ It listened for a moment more, then shrugged. Must have been its imagination.) There had to be a way. The sock was going to find a way, no matter how stubbornly they resisted.

It had to make Spike and Buffy admit that they wanted each other.

***

Spike wanted Buffy so much that it hurt.

She was standing in a shaft of sunlight in the center of the library, chatting with Giles, her hair glowing gold, and he imagined pulling her off into the stacks, running his hands all over her sun-warmed skin, kneeling down to devour her glorious wet quim, letting her eager hands unfasten his belt and his button and his zipper and release his desperate cock so he could wrap her legs around his waist and drive home, deep into her heat, fuck her against the bookshelves, hard and fast, then slow and tender, any way she wanted it…

_Dru_ , he reminded himself. _Get Dru back and you can fuck for weeks on end, fuck and feast and god, what must it feel like, being inside Buffy, feeling her come around you, the scent of her hair and the beat of her heart and all that life…_

He shook his head, sharply. This was all pointless. He loved Dru, his wicked princess, his dark queen. It was just the deprivation that was getting to him, the fact that he hadn’t been inside her for so long, since the wheelchair, and Buffy was _here_ , and willing to kiss him, offering herself up like a virgin sacrifice.

Well, not a virgin – they both knew that – but that wasn’t really his thing anyhow, he liked a woman who knew what she wanted, and _god_ did Buffy know what she wanted, hot and demanding and willing and open, just shy enough to be alluring, with so much passion that Spike felt like he was going to burn to ash every time he touched her. She wanted him to fuck her, she had presented herself on a fucking platter night after night, until he felt like a cad for turning her away, and then she didn’t even run away, she stayed and took what he could spare her and curled up against him, talking about hopes and dreams and life and school, sharing her grief. She let him talk about Drusilla, let him cry into her naked bosom, stroked his hair as he wept. He didn’t even mind when she talked about Angel, even though she obviously had no idea what he was really like, because there was something sweet and adorable about her youthful devotion, something pure, and he liked the idea of it. He remembered being in love like that. It hadn’t ended well, but he remembered the feeling, how sweet it was, and it made him want to weep again, even as it made him want to fuck her and fuck her until she forgot all about Angel and pure first love and everything, until all she saw was Spike.

Watching her now, glowing in the sun, he wondered if Dru would even care. If she would even notice.

He reluctantly tore his eyes away from Buffy, because he had a good feeling about this book, he was sure it was the one. Giles had dismissed it because he couldn’t read it – it was in a rather obscure dialect of Fyarl, written phonetically using the writing system of another demon clan entirely since Fyarl demons generally didn’t write anything, and Spike was only able to read it because the Fyarl bodyguards he had once hired had happened to speak this particular variant, and he was good at sounding shit out.

He had found a passage that referred to Acathla, and he considered calling Buffy over, so he could inhale the scent of her hair as she bent over to look at the text she couldn’t read, but as he read on, he felt suddenly cold.

Once again, Spike was staring at a page that held an answer he didn’t want to know.

The problem was, it was just the answer he had been looking for all this time.

He had found it.

He took a deep breath, let it out gradually, and slowly closed the book.

 

End Chapter 5


	6. A Sock Changes Course

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this fic is DONE at 10 chapters and about 50K words. I will be posting a chapter a day - real life permitting - until it is all up here. If you can't wait, you can read the whole thing (though not completely betaed) at the Seasonal Spuffy livejournal community.

The next day, Spike helped himself to one of the many blank journals the watcher had stored under the circulation desk, nonchalantly retrieving the Fyarl book from the lower shelf where he had tucked it the night before.

He had spent a goodly portion of the past twenty-four hours rationalizing his decision not to tell Buffy about the lead he had found. His official reason, the one he told himself was the true reason, was that he didn’t trust Buffy not to double-cross him, and in fact wanted to keep his options open for double-crossing _her_ , because he was evil and that’s what he did. Double-cross and backstab and throw a spanner in the works for the white hats’ plans.

He knew it was a lie, but lying was also what he did, because he was evil, so he figured that was all right.

He also told himself that it was because he didn’t want to risk Buffy pulling back from their delicious late-night affair on account of progress on the retrieving-Angel front, and that one was true in a way, because he hadn’t had his fill of Buffy yet, he wanted more – though he was beginning to think he was lying again when he reassured himself that he would be sated at some point, ready to cast her aside and go back to his dark princess. He was starting to suspect that he would never get enough of Buffy, that he would never be sated, but of course things would have to end at some point. When he had Dru back. He told himself that Dru would be enough.

There was another reason – he didn’t like it, because it hinted at softness – but he reluctantly had to admit to himself that he didn’t want get Buffy’s hopes up, just in case it didn’t pan out. As he knew well, disappointment was easier to bear if it was a steady slide downward, not a rollercoaster of possibilities and hopes. If it turned out to be a false lead, she would never have to know.

He told himself that this was the secret reason his self-deception was covering up, because he already knew there were bits of him that were soft, that he had a tender side, so it wasn’t especially shattering to his sense of self. He was a lover, at heart; he liked pampering his woman, and for the moment at least, Buffy was his woman, and thus a little tenderness was called for. He was man enough to admit it.

The _other_ other reason, his first thought upon reading the passage in question, the thought he had only thought once before shoving it under the mish-mash of lies and rationalizations and half-truths… That one he wouldn’t even think about again, because it couldn’t really be true. It was sick and twisted and wrong, and a betrayal so deep he could never forgive himself.

He was worried that the vague clues in the Fyarl book wouldn’t deliver, yeah, that they would just lead him to another dead end. That, he could accept. He could accept failure. He could handle self-doubt.

But that thought. The one he couldn’t admit had even existed. Now, watching Buffy as she frowned at another page of cramped Latin, her face a mix of despair and determination, it floated up again, unbidden.

Spike wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to succeed.

It was strange, not knowing what he wanted. Unexpected. He hadn’t been uncertain of his desires since the moment he had awakened with a lust for blood and adoration of Dru, and this idea that he might have to choose, to make any sort of decision… it didn’t feel right.

Of course he was going to choose to get Dru back. _Of course_ he was. He knew what his decision would be, because it couldn’t be anything else.

But telling Buffy… that was actually deciding. And he wasn’t ready to decide.

And that, that was a truth he couldn’t face. No matter how true he feared it was.

He determinedly opened the notebook and started to write.

***

The sock curled atop the dryer in dejection. Things were not going well at all. Buffy and Spike were spending all their time reading books and making notes, which was boring; the sock had thus far failed to get any smoochies going, which was depressing; and worst of all, Joyce had gone off to visit her sister, and had not started the laundry before she left. The sock had grown accustomed to its nightly spa treatment, and so was settling in for a good sulk when Buffy and Spike came downstairs, all set to lock Spike up for the night.

Except she didn’t lock him up.

A second later, the sock wished it had eyes, so that they could bug out at what it was witnessing.

A few seconds after that, it wished it had eyes so that it could avert them.

Wow.

_Wow_.

The sock suddenly realized that it was a goshdarn matchmaking genius, because this was a whole lot more advanced than it had even been trying for, and from the sound of things, Buffy was really, really, _really_ happy. Obviously one of the sock’s clever schemes had planted a seed that just now was bearing fruit. It twitched its cuff around to pat itself on the back. Go sock!

It wondered what it should do now that Buffy and Spike had achieved official happily-ever-after coupledom. It rather thought tai chi might be interesting. It should head upstairs, see if Joyce had a videotape….

Oh, who was it kidding? It stayed right there and settled in to watch.

After a while – a _long_ while, as apparently both Spike and Buffy had been eating their Wheaties – they finally subsided onto Spike’s cot in a sweaty, disheveled mess of mostly-nakedness. The sock frowned a bit. It didn’t have any actual human experience to go by, but it was fairly certain that there was supposed to be more to the process. Shouldn’t the mostly-nakedness be all-nakedness? Suddenly concerned, it slithered down the side of the dryer and crept closer, to hear what they were saying.

Buffy was tracing shapes on Spike’s bare chest. “I didn’t find anything today.”

Spike shrugged. “Can look again tomorrow.”

Buffy was silent for a while, curled in to Spike’s side. “I’m sorry,” she whispered finally.

The sock crept closer. This was not good. Buffy sounded _sad_.

“What’s to be sorry for, love?” Spike laughed softly.

“I just… I thought we’d have them back by now.”

_Them?_ Who were _they_?

The sock was quivering with curiosity, but it had to wait because Spike had tugged Buffy up for some more kisses. Which was kind of infuriating. Here they had been _not_ kissing the whole time that the sock had been working its heel off trying to get them to kiss, and now that it wanted them to stop kissing so it could find out what was going on, they were all with the tongues and stuff. It just wasn’t fair.

“Not to worry, love,” Spike finally said, shifting around so he was spooned up to Buffy’s back, hands idly stroking down her body. “We’ll find a way, any day now.”

The sock fumed. That was _not informative_.

Buffy wriggled closer to Spike. “Do you think they’re all right? I mean, it’s a hell dimension. There’s got to be all sorts of… hell stuff.”

Spike laughed bitterly, pressing a line of kisses along Buffy’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’re fine, pet. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re running the place by now. Dru’s got a way about her, tends to attract fanatical minions. And Angel…” He trailed off, his expression hardening. “I’m sure he’s getting by. Might be a tad irate they don’t have his brand of hair gel.” He ran a tickling hand along Buffy’s bare stomach, making her giggle against her will.

She gave him a wry glance over her shoulder. “You know, you use more hair gel than he does.”

Spike pressed his forehead against the back of her neck, silent for a moment. “Dru liked it,” he said finally, a hint of bitter laughter behind it. “She liked me to use the same brand, even. The scent… reminded her of him.”

Buffy turned in his arms, placing a tender kiss on his forehead. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tousling his gelled hair so it fell in curls over his forehead.

“You’re sorry a lot tonight, pet,” Spike said gruffly, hiking her leg up over his hip. “Don’t have to apologize to me for a sodding thing.” He ground against her significantly.

“I’m not apologizing for me,” Buffy said with a sad smile. “I’m apologizing for her. Because she can’t.”

Spike stared at her for a moment, frozen, and then groaned, rolling her on top of him. The sock quickly realized they didn’t intend to talk again any time soon.

Well. The sock still didn’t completely understand what was going on, but it seemed to recall this _Angel_ and _Drew_ coming up in conversation back when most of the conversation between Buffy and Spike consisted of crying, so it was pretty clear that they were exes that the couple were still inexplicably hung up on – despite all the interesting things they were doing right at this very moment – and all the boring research was trying to get them to come back. How annoying.

The sock especially didn’t like the sound of this _Angel_ fellow. He seemed like a cad. Even the name was the sleazy sort of thing a gigolo might adopt to seem mysterious, right up there with _Fabio_ and _Misha_. And apparently Angel had been two-timing Buffy with this Drew person! (The sock had thought “Drew” was usually short for “Andrew” but Spike had been talking about “her” so things were a little ambiguous there. Then again, the sock was hardly one to talk about ambiguous sexuality.) In any case, Buffy deserved better.

No, the sock was having none of this _Angel_ business. It had put a huge amount of work into getting this kissing going between Buffy and Spike – it was trying _very_ hard to ignore all the other stuff going on right now, though it was difficult when they were both being so loud – and it was _darn_ well not going to let some interloper ex-boyfriend come back and screw things up now.

The sock would just have to nip this research thing in the bud.

***

School was starting up again. It wasn’t fair.

Buffy was supposed to have Angel back by now, everything was supposed to be back to normal, but nothing at all was normal, and being back in the crowded halls lined with lockers while everyone around her lived out their normal high-school-student lives… It was surreal, that was the word, how she looked and walked and even talked just like one of them, but she wasn’t really, not anymore.

Dating Angel – if you could call it that – had seemed like just an extension of her high school life, like he was just one of the jocks walking down the hall. The sort of relationship you giggled about in the girls’ room, where you wrote your names together in a heart on the cover of your notebooks, gazed out the window imagining his eyes and wondering if he would take you to Prom.

Now when she pictured Angel’s eyes they were full of hatred and malice, and when she gazed out the window she wasn’t thinking about him anyhow. Well, sometimes, in an abstract way, but mostly she was just thinking about Spike.

He was kind of memorable.

It was weird, though. She had loved Angel so much. She still did. But now, it didn’t even seem completely real. Like it had happened in a fairy tale, to someone else. Everything about Angel had been dreamy and idealized, like she was floating up in clouds. Whereas Spike felt real. Solid. Earthy.

It didn’t feel right to compare them somehow, because Angel was her boyfriend and Spike was… not her boyfriend. She told herself it wasn’t fair to Spike.

She secretly felt it wasn’t fair to Angel.

It wasn’t Angel’s fault – or maybe it was his fault, but she wasn’t holding it against him – that they had only had one night of love before he had gone evil, that they hadn’t ever made it past the awkward bits. Which had been nice, even with the awkwardness. Maybe even because of the awkwardness. Sweet and tender and passionate, and not at all like she had heard first times were supposed to be.  People made it sound like it was some huge painful ordeal, but really, it had been good, almost the entire time, and she was pretty sure she had had an orgasm there at the end, her first, and she was sure if they had ever had a second time, it would have been even better. He had treated her like she was made of glass, like a precious work of art, like a delicate flower.

Spike treated her like a woman. She liked it.

The first time she had joined him in his basement after the freaky porn incident – they still didn’t know how any of it had happened, and the videotape had vanished into thin air – she had been prepared to sniffle a bit, to give them an excuse to cuddle, but as soon as she had looked at him and he had looked at her, they had tossed the pretense aside.

“Need something, pet?” he had said offhandedly, hands trembling as he pulled her down beside him.

“Yes,” was all she had said back before kissing him.

And that had been that. They had fallen into kissing as inevitably as they had previously fallen into tears, and – maybe because they had already exposed so much of themselves in their nights of shared grief –they didn’t hide behind anything in bed either. They were both broken, shattered, but somehow when they came together they managed to fit their broken pieces into a beautiful mosaic, and it was right.

Not right in a lot of ways, she knew. Not right forever. But right for right now.

And being back in school just felt _wrong_.

It was good to hang out with the Scoobies, though – they had almost all their classes together again – and that kind of made up for the wrongness.

At least until they talked at lunch.

“So, how’s your evil boyfriend?” Xander opened with, and Buffy’s mouth fell open, because even though she knew Xander hated Angel, that was a pretty cruel way to start the conversation.

“Still in a hell dimension, last I checked,” Buffy snapped back. “God, what is _wrong_ with you?”

Xander looked confused. “You mean he’s not in the library taking evil notes on evil books?”

“Wait, what?” Now Buffy was confused. “Why would Angel be in the library?”

Willow put a hand on Buffy’s arm. “He doesn’t mean Angel, Buffy. He means Spike.”

“Spike?” Buffy took a quick drink of her Diet Coke. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Oh, so he’s just a former enemy that you research with and patrol with and spend every waking hour with and keep locked away in your basement.” Willow had a teasing smile on her face, which was really wiggy.

“Yeah, that’s basically it,” Buffy said cheerily, not seeing any need to bring up the kissing and nakedness and everything-sexual-except-sex parts.

“Aw, man, Buffy, you thought I meant _Angel_? I’m a jerk, but I’m not _that_ much of a jerk.” Xander had finally caught on to the first part of their conversation and had a look of panic on his face.

“It’s okay, I got it now,” Buffy reassured him.

“But Spike is in the library?” Cordelia had an impatient look on her face.

“He should be. Giles was going to tell Snyder that Spike was his research assistant, so he could keep working on my project.” Upon learning that Spike was reasonably conversant in several demon languages – “enough to give orders and order takeout,” Spike had scoffed – Giles had in fact commandeered the vampire to help with a project or two of his own. Spike had looked supremely pissed at the request, but after a glance at Buffy had sullenly agreed. Giles had confessed to Buffy later that he occasionally slipped Spike a passage that he had a good translation of already, as a test, and he was fairly confident the vampire was both translating to the best of his abilities and possessed of abilities beyond what he claimed. Which was unexpected, but Buffy had asked him about it later that night, in bed, and Spike had shrugged and pointed out that the watcher was paying him by the word, and since Buffy wouldn’t let him steal things it was the only way to stay in cigarettes and booze, and then he’d looked at her in a way that said he was really indulging the watcher for _her_ , and she had left it at that.

“So, do we ever get to find out what this ‘project’ is? Maybe when you glue some charts to a posterboard and put it out with the model volcanoes and plants-listening-to-Mozart?”

“Yeah, of course. If it ever goes anywhere. Right now it’s mostly just dead ends and depression.” Buffy sighed. “Good thing school is back in session, so I can also have six fun classes to feel useless and maudlin about.” She looked at her tray of cafeteria food, which suddenly looked about as appetizing as, well, cafeteria food. “I should go see how things are going.”

“I’ll come along,” Willow piped up, sliding her uneaten pudding onto Oz’s tray. “Maybe I can find something to help with.”

“Sure,” Buffy shrugged, though she was inwardly disappointed, because she couldn’t smooch Spike with Willow watching. She had missed him during her morning classes.

They had almost made it to the library talking about inconsequential things, when Willow grinned at her again, voice teasing. “So, I promise not to notice if you decide to sneak into the stacks with your latest vamp boyfriend.”

Buffy turned bright red, because that was exactly what she had been planning on doing. “Oh my god. How many times do I have to say it? Spike is _not_ my boyfriend!”

And then they went through the swinging library doors and Spike was there, sitting at a shadowed table, glaring at her under dark eyebrows, and she realized that of course he had heard her, because that was how these things worked, especially with a sharp-eared vampire involved, but then she didn’t care, because she had missed him all day, and there he was at last, and she could feel her face breaking out in a goofy grin.

After a second more of glaring, and a brief flash of surprise, he grinned back.

***

After the final bell, Spike tucked his private notebook and the books he had been working with back on their bottom shelf and replaced them with one of the useless things Giles was having him translate, because after that crack at lunch, he was fairly certain that the slayer didn’t deserve to get her “real,” soul-having boyfriend back, and was considering the possibilities of just snagging Dru and heading for the hills. Not seriously, of course, but he was still a little pissed.

It all fell away when she ran in the door, greeting him with a brilliant smile.

Giles had stepped out for a faculty conference of some sort, and Spike was the only one in the library, so he stood to greet her. “About time, Slayer. Was beginning to think you’d run home without me.”

“Would I do that?” Buffy said, batting her eyelashes, and he laughed, because of course she would, except at the same time he knew she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t leave him behind.

“Ready to get down to business?” Spike said, letting his voice ring with a bit of innuendo, because really, he wouldn’t mind getting busy.

Buffy glanced over her shoulder. “Nobody’s here. Kiss me.” Spike not only kissed her, he slid his hands under the hem of her skirt. She was wearing panties today, but that was all right; he rubbed them against her, sliding her into the corner of the book cage as he did so, where nobody could see if they came in to the library, not before Spike could hear them. _Fuck_ , she was already wet, like she’d been thinking about him all afternoon. Buffy tilted her hips to give him better access, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. “God,” she whispered, as his fingers stroked her knowingly. “ _God._ ”

“So I’m not your boyfriend?” Spike said conversationally as she gasped into his shirt.

“No,” Buffy whispered between gasps. “You’re not my boyfriend.”

Spike stroked harder, twisting his fingers in the fabric of her panties. “What am I?” he insisted, suddenly terrified that he was nothing. He was used to being nothing to Dru, but he felt sick at the thought that he was nothing to Buffy, too.

Buffy tilted her head up then, kissed him, tongue sliding lazily against his. He stroked her deeper, just the way he knew she liked it, and she threw her head back as she came, barely managing to stifle her cry. _That’s all right_ , Spike thought tenderly. _I’ll make you scream again tonight, when nobody can hear. You can scream as much as you want. Tell me. “_ What am I?” he asked again.

She returned to herself slowly, eyes focusing on his chin as she blushed. “What do you want to be?” she asked in a low voice, sliding a hand up the front of his jeans, eyes hot.

_Boyfriend. Lover. Everything._ “What am I to _you_?” he whispered into her ear, sliding his cheek against hers, cajoling. She kept stroking him through his jeans, and he leaned in to it, though it was right up to the edge of the limits he had drawn, the point at which Buffy had to give way to Dru. She could touch and caress and bring him off, through the stiff denim, he just couldn’t have her skin against his and still convince himself that he was staying true. It was awful, this self-restraint business, not at all in his nature, but he owed it to Drusilla, owed her that much at least.

He suspected that the moment he felt Buffy’s warmth on his cock, no barriers in between, he would never be able to give it up.

“Tell me what I am to you,” he repeated, putting his hand over hers, encouraging her.

She quivered. “There isn’t a word,” she whispered into his neck. “I don’t know a word for what you are.”

“But not a boyfriend.”

“Not a boyfriend,” she confirmed, voice thready with desire. “You’re… _more_.”

That wasn’t an answer, not really, but it felt all right, comforting, and he pressed her close for another kiss, slow and sweet, as he came with a jerk under her clever hand. He tenderly lifted her hand off the denim and pressed his lips to each knuckle, raising an eyebrow at her smile of smug satisfaction. God, she was beautiful. Beautiful and saucy and sweet. He kissed her smile away.

“We should research,” she said after a bit, though she pressed a kiss to his neck after, like she wasn’t quite done yet.

“Yeah, we should.” Spike grinned at her. “Do I look like a man who does what I _should_ do?” He kissed her again, hard this time, just to show her.

She shoved him away and grinned right back. “Never. But it’s time to go research.”

“All right,” Spike said indulgently, like he was doing her a favor, though he did actually want to get back to work. He had made progress on his translation, wanted to double-check something in the watcher’s notes while he was gone. He kissed her one last time and went to the door of the book cage.

It was locked.

From the outside.

With a _padlock_.

“What the bleeding hell…?”

***

Outside the book cage, watching from the safety of Buffy’s backpack, the sock congratulated itself on a job well done. They wouldn’t be able to do any research at all until someone came along with a key. Which might be _hours_.

As it watched, Buffy came over to the door, frowning, then gave it a swift punch near the lock. The hasp of the lock snapped. “That’s weird,” she said, looking at the broken padlock. She tossed it aside with a shrug. “So, research?” They headed towards the tables.

_Curses, foiled again_ , the sock muttered to itself.

It was going to need a bigger lock.

 

End Chapter 6


	7. A Sock on a Rampage

Spike looked down at the page of writing in front of him. He didn’t know what to do.

The Fyarl book had, as it turned out, been a collection of oral histories and legends and prophecies that a particular tribe of the demons had recorded over the course of their mercenary travels, gleaned from the various demon races they had encountered. They were a mixed bag, ranging from the typical epics and hero-journeys (bloodier than their counterparts in human culture) to what Spike would swear was a several-generations-modified version of “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”

Right smack in the middle was the prophecy that had caught Spike’s eye, entitled “The Bride of Acathla.”

He had wondered, when he started translating the passage, whether the “bride” was meant to refer to Buffy, or Drusilla, or some other nameless woman lost to history, but his confusion was quickly cleared up, because he could only imagine one woman in the history of the universe, one brilliant, shining paragon, that could conceivably be described as a “Mad Tyrant God-Queen.”

_That’s my Dru_ , he thought with wry pride, stroking the words on the paper.

The Mad Tyrant God-Queen, according to the prophecy, would one day come to her people, ushering in generation after generation of conflict and bacchanalian extravagance. She had hair like the night and a face like carved bone. Her eyes shone with the light of her visions, and her visions brought her people to glory and despair. She would reign over the dimension with joy and whimsy and torture and effulgent songs, blood dripping down her white arms, for millennia.

Spike wasn’t quite sure of that last word. It might actually be “eternity.”

Interestingly, there was no mention of Angel – not a paramour, not a rival, not a God-King. Spike didn’t know whether that meant he had died, or left, or perhaps just wasn’t exciting enough for the prophecy to mention. (He suspected the last one, Angel being about as interesting as mashed potatoes.) What was most important, though, was not the prophecy itself. It was the provenance.

He now had the name of the dimension, and the names of three different demon breeds that came from it.

And he recognized them.

He looked at the notebook again, the jagged block-printing, a rejection of the copperplate penmanship of his human self. He still didn’t have the answer, not the complete answer, not the words and the ritual and the magickal components necessary to get Dru back, but he knew he would soon. He was one-hundred-percent certain that he would succeed.

He still wasn’t ready.

Last night, Joyce had asked him what kind of wine he would want to drink with Christmas dinner. (He had suggested the Zinfandel she had served at Thanksgiving.) Buffy had been artlessly feeling him out on his likes and needs, leading him to believe she was planning on buying him a present. (He had tried to hint that sending Joyce away for a spa weekend would be a lovely present for them both, but also had mentioned in passing that his favorite Sex Pistols CD had been destroyed when the factory burned.) He was disgustingly domestic and settled, and he despised and craved it at the same time.

Buffy hadn’t locked him up for longer than he could remember, had even fallen asleep in his arms a few times, and all he had done was pull her closer, kiss her forehead, and slide his hand down to cradle her sweet quim as they slept. Together.

What was _wrong_ with him?

He didn’t need Buffy anymore. He had what he needed, the name and the breeds and the prophecy, and it would be the work of minutes to knock out the Watcher, take the books he required, and be on his merry way. He could wait and ambush the slayer, drain her dry before he left, then find a safe place to bring back his Mad Tyrant God-Queen, let her rule _him_ for millennia or eternity or whatever the word really meant. Angel could rot in the hell he had opened for himself while Spike and Dru returned to their blissful unlife of blood and sex and murder. Logically, Spike couldn’t see a downside, not one.

But he closed the notebook, gently, so as not to attract the watcher’s attention – he was fussing about with some correspondence – and tucked it away on its shelf. He could kill Giles later. After he’d had his holiday wine. Perhaps rung in the New Year – Buffy had said something about the Bronze, and dancing, and he had been thinking how delicious it would be to bring her off in that little alcove behind the stairs, or maybe up on the catwalk.

He had ideas, was the thing. All sorts of ideas and fantasies and desires, and he couldn’t just abandon them, not until he had explored them. Particularly not now, when Buffy was proving that she also was just brimming with naughty ideas. The slayer was a fucking revelation. Dru would understand.

Besides, after reading the prophecy, he was quite sure she was off having the time of her unlife.

The bell rang, and he practically salivated. _Lunchtime_. He opened the book Giles was having him translate now, trying to look diligent.

Buffy would be paying him a visit soon.

God, he’d missed her.

***

The sock waited until Spike was deeply involved in his work to inch along the base of the bookshelf, headed for the notebook.

It had been watching Spike and Buffy for months, the whole fall semester, and it hadn’t taken long to figure out that Buffy was getting nowhere. She would spend half her research time glaring at pages she clearly didn’t understand, and the other half making eyes at Spike, and never wrote anything down at all. It was almost like she didn’t even care anymore.

_Good_ , the sock thought, ribbing expanding in satisfaction.

Spike, though… Spike was a problem.

The sock had quickly figured out that there was a notebook that he only wrote in when Buffy was in class, that he casually slid under other books whenever the old guy came over to check on him. He might as well have lit up a neon sign over his head that said, “I’m hiding something! Ask me what!” With a huge glowing arrow. Maybe even some strobe lights.

The sock’s path was clear. The notebook held Spike’s secret research. The fact that he was keeping it secret meant that it was somehow important.

And that meant it had to be destroyed.

The sock had pondered many ways to destroy the notebook – setting fire to the library (pretty), luring a teething puppy into the room (adorable), even flushing it down the toilet (icky but symbolically satisfying) – but it had finally decided that the easiest thing would be to just steal it and hide it somewhere else in the book stacks. Maybe behind the Tolstoy. Nobody ever actually read Tolstoy, not high school students, at least; they just got the Cliff’s Notes, because the Cliff’s Notes were as long as a regular book. Yes, the Tolstoy should be a safe place. Right behind “War and Peace,” the Tolstoy-iest of Tolstoys. Nobody would _ever_ check that out.

Stealthily, keeping watch on Spike in case he changed his mind about being done, the sock crept towards the notebook. It cautiously eased its ribbing around the spine, tugging it out a centimeter at a time until the book finally fell to the floor with a soft thud. Panicking, it scrunched up against the shelves, in case the small sound had caught Spike’s attention.

Spike didn’t even look around; he was staring at the book in front of him with a look of concentrated anticipation, which was strange, but the sock couldn’t complain.

It started to drag the notebook off towards the stairs.

When Buffy entered the library a few minutes later, the sock wasn’t even halfway to its destination in the Russian Literature section – it still had the stairs to navigate – and it froze in indecision. Buffy might suck at research, but she had incredibly sharp eyes; it couldn’t decide whether it was better to keep moving, or to find a closer hiding place.

“Slayer!” Spike hissed gladly, rising to greet her. “Come to favor us with your linguistic expertise?”

“Give it a rest, Spike,” Buffy said fondly. “You know I can’t just leave you unsupervised.”

“I am quite certain I count as supervision,” Giles interjected dryly.

“So, find anything good?” Buffy leaned against the table next to Spike’s research, twitching a loose sheet of notepaper up to look at it. She was holding it with the writing upside-down, but didn’t seem to care, as she was gazing at Spike over the edge of it.

Spike grinned at her, eyes sultry. “Yeah. Got something _really_ good for you. Enlightening, you might say.”

“Oooh. Gonna show me?” Buffy raised her eyebrows, challenging. “Where is it?”

“Upstairs,” Spike said huskily. “On the back shelves.”

Buffy’s eyes flared. “Lead the way.” They headed towards the stairs to the second level, fingers intertwined.

Giles rolled his eyes behind their backs, and the sock had to agree. They weren’t fooling anybody.

Then the sock noticed the path they were taking to the stairs, and rapidly zipped out of sight. _Whew!_ _Close call!_

Spike’s notebook was still lying on the floor, and the sock watched in horror as Buffy’s feet came closer and closer, until the toe of her boot hit the spine, sending the notebook skittering across the floor. It flopped open.

“Whoops! Better get that…” Buffy bent down and picked it up, idly glancing at the pages as she did. Then she paused, and gave it a more thorough look. “Spike, is this yours?”

Spike frowned back at the shelf where he usually kept the notebook. “Uh, yeah. Wonder how…”

Buffy was leafing through the pages. “Spike, when were you going to tell me about this?”

There was a moment when Spike was obviously trying to decide what answer would be least likely to lead to a massive beat-down. Finally, he shrugged. “Wanted to be sure, first. Still need to check some things…”

“You found them.” Buffy beamed at Spike. “ _You found them!_ ” She hugged the notebook to her chest.

Spike bared his teeth at her. “Yeah. Suppose I did.”

Buffy’s face fell into serious lines then, eyes running across Spike’s face, then she grabbed his hand again, tugging him up the stairs. “The thing. On the back shelves. The thing you found. Show me _now_.” They disappeared into the stacks.

The sock followed cautiously, hugging the base of the bookshelves as it inched its way into the depths of the library. By the time it got there, Buffy and Spike were locked in an embrace, kissing hungrily. As the sock watched, Buffy broke free, took Spike’s hand and slid it under her skirt, eyes locked on his. The sock couldn’t see exactly what was going on, but a second later, Spike jolted.

“ _Fuck_ , Slayer, you been like this all day?” His voice was rough.

Buffy nodded, moving her hips against his hand. “I didn’t even put them on this morning,” she said in a low voice, gasping.

“Fuck.” Spike pressed his forehead to hers, looking down her body. “Let me see, love.”

Buffy’s hands pulled up the hem of her skirt, bunching it at her waist, a faint, knowing smile on her face The sock inched a few feet more, trying to see what Buffy was talking about – it was pretty sure it knew what she meant, but she could have been talking about socks or something – but Spike was in the way, curling his hand under her thigh and lifting it up and to the side, fingers trembling.

“For me?” Spike said softly, pulling back to meet Buffy’s eyes.

“For you,” Buffy whispered back, biting her lip as Spike’s free hand slipped in to stroke her. Then they were kissing again, Buffy moaning quietly into Spike’s mouth as his hand moved between them.

Months of watching Buffy and Spike make out at every opportunity had left the sock jaded; as they continued to writhe against the shelves, it turned its attention to the important thing: the location of the notebook.

_Ah!_ There it was, tucked on the shelf behind Buffy’s head. As the sock watched, Buffy threw her head back, biting her lip to hold back a scream, and her hair slid across the cover. Well, there was no getting it now. Even in the throes of ecstasy, it was unlikely they would miss a sock moving around two inches from Buffy’s ear. The sock could bide its time.

On the bright side, time spent smooching was not spent researching. The sock approved.

It inched its way back downstairs, where Giles had turned on the radio, a look of disgusted resignation on his face. The sock slithered into Buffy’s backpack and settled in to wait.

It had gotten good at waiting.

***

Buffy barely made it to class after lunch – she had to make a quick pit-stop in the bathroom to clean up – and Willow greeted her with a smile of relief as she slid into the desk next to hers.

A few minutes into class, Buffy felt a nudge at her elbow, and looked down to find a folded note. Warily keeping an eye on their teacher, she unfolded it and read.

_How is the research going?_ There was a sly-looking smiley face next to the words.

Buffy flattened out the note on her notebook, nonchalantly writing her answer. _Good. Spike found something really useful._ She stretched casually, dropping the refolded note on Willow’s desk.

A few minutes later, the note came back. _Yes, but how is the research going? (For the record, by “research” I mean kissing.)_

Buffy felt her face turning red. She hastily scribbled her answer. _Why would there be kissing?_

Buffy had to wait a long time for an answer; she surreptitiously rubbed her lips, wondering if the fact that she had in fact been doing a lot of kissing just before was totally obvious. Could people tell? She never could, but maybe other people could. Then she wondered if people could tell when other people had been doing other sexy things, because Spike had been really inspired by her no-panties stunt.

Not inspired enough to let her unbuckle his jeans, but she could tell he was wavering by the way his voice had caught when she brushed the buckle on her way to touch him through the denim. He had even fallen to his knees, so that he could see what he was doing better, and she could tell he wanted to do something more while he was down there, she had been tense with anticipation hoping he would, and when he had reluctantly let her skirt fall so she could get to her afternoon classes, he had pressed a reverent kiss against her, kissing her right _there_ through the fabric of her skirt before rising to his feet, and she had finally resolved that she was going to ask him, no matter how embarrassed she was, she was going to ask him to kiss her there without any fabric in the way, because time was running out, and she had to know what it felt like before she gave it up forever.

She wondered if he would let her kiss him through his jeans, or if that was against the rules. Stupid rules.

The note under her elbow startled her out of her naughty thoughts.

_It’s okay. I’m dating a werewolf, remember? And Xander’s dating Cordelia. You can kiss Spike._

Buffy looked at the note for a long time, thoughtful. Finally, she wrote her reply and passed it back.

_Can we talk after school?_

The bell rang just a bit later, and Buffy met Willow’s eyes shyly as they both got up for passing period, braced for rejection, but Willow just nodded, smiling wryly. “Where should we meet?” the redhead said casually, as if she hadn’t just busted Buffy for lip-locking with the evil undead.

“Um, not the library. Maybe outside? That bench?”

“Okey-dokey.”

Then Xander joined them, making some lame joke that Buffy barely heard as they walked down the hallway, and things were sort of normal again, a nice surface normal that almost made it possible for Buffy to ignore the way she was shaking inside.

It was good that things were moving along at last, right? She had always known things couldn’t go on like this forever.

Even if she sometimes wished they could.

***

The sock woke up when Buffy carried her backpack out into the sunlight, and for a moment it was disoriented, because Buffy usually headed straight to the library after her last class, to get back to the books, and it had expected that today of all days she would be eager to get back to work.

But no, she was sitting in the sun somewhere – the sock could feel the heat of the sunlight through the backpack, though it was gentler now that they were into December – and a short while later the sock heard her greet Willow. They chatted a bit, walking, before settling down somewhere shady. The sock cautiously poked out of the backpack enough to see leaves waving overhead. So, under a tree. This could be interesting; the sock nudged the zipper of the backpack up just enough that it could see and hear more clearly.

“So. I hear you’re making _progress_ on your _research_ ,” Willow said in a voice of loving mockery.

“ _Willow._ ”

“Sorry, I’ll stop teasing.” There was a crack-and-hiss as Willow popped the top of a soda. “So, is this when I get to find out about the super-secret project?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s time.” Buffy sighed, opening her own drink. “Spike and I have been trying to figure out a way to get Angel back.”

Willow was silent for a long time before speaking. “And this is a good idea… why?”

“He’s my boyfriend, Willow. I can’t just leave him in a hell dimension. Not if I can get him back.” Buffy was plucking blades of grass from the ground, scattering them around her feet.

“Not to throw cold water on this, but do you really _want_ him back? I mean, you haven’t seemed like…” The sock listened avidly for Buffy’s reply.

She shrugged. “Of course I do. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff he needs to make up for, but that’s all stuff he did without his soul. Once we give him back his soul, he should be okay again. He won’t be evil anymore.”

“Yeah, I mean, I was going to mention that the last time Angel was around, he was all with the killing people and the making tropical fish necklaces and the trying to end the world, but, um, that actually wasn’t what I was talking about.”

Buffy frowned. “What are you talking about, then?”

Willow sighed in exasperation. “Buffy, you have a new boyfriend now.”

“I do not,” Buffy whispered, looking sulkily at the ground.

“When you spend all your time with someone, doing things together and talking and laughing and sneaking off to kiss every chance you get? That’s a boyfriend. We’ve all had plenty of time to accept it. Maybe you should, too.”

Buffy looked at her little pile of shorn grass for a long moment. “Spike doesn’t want to be my boyfriend.”

“Really? Then why is he going along with all of this, the research and the not-killing-people and all that?”

“We’re going to get Drusilla back, too. That’s why he’s helping.”

“So he follows you around like a puppy dog because he’s in love with someone else?” Willow’s voice dripped with disbelief.

“He doesn’t… I don’t know, Will.” Buffy ran a hand through her hair, sweeping it off her face. “It’s like… It just happened. We were both so sad, and he was there and I was there, and we cried for weeks, and then the kissing happened, but all the time we’ve been talking about Angel and Dru, how we’re going to get them back. Like we’re just… killing time until we can get back to our real lives. This is all just a time-out.”

Willow’s lips were pressed together, like she had something to say but didn’t want to say it. Finally, she said, “So, you’re sure this is what you want?”

“Of course,” Buffy said softly, but she was looking away. “Spike wants Drusilla and I… I want Angel. We want them back.”

The sock couldn’t see her face, but she didn’t sound sure. She sounded sad.

Willow sighed again. “Well, if it’s what you really want, you know I’ll help you. What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to get together what you need for the ensoulment spell. The herbs, and candles, and, um, the Orb of Jessica.” Buffy’s voice was firm and determined. “Do you still have that?”

“Thessulah. Um, yeah, about that. You know in ‘Labyrinth’ when David Bowie’s doing that really cool thing with the glass ball?” Buffy nodded encouragingly. _Every_ girl remembered everything David Bowie did in Labyrinth, didn’t they? “Well, last time we watched it, Xander decided to try it out, and… Let’s just say I don’t, in fact, still have it.”

“Do you think you can get one?”

“Probably. They’re not actually that rare, for some weird reason. I’ll head by the magic shop now, see if they have any in stock. I can pick up the rest of the stuff we need, too.”

“Thanks, Will. I, um, don’t know when we’ll have the rest of the research done, but I think it would be good if we have it all ready. So we don’t have to wait. I can’t bring him back if we can’t give him back his soul.”

“If you say so.” Willow sipped at her soda. “You know, it didn’t work last time. The spell.”

“It’ll work this time. It has to.” Buffy glared at the ground, eyes hard.

Willow’s face crinkled with doubt. “And if it doesn’t?”

Buffy shrugged, but there was an awkwardness to it, as if she was feeling less-than-sanguine about the situation. “Then I’ll kill him again.”

They finished their sodas in silence.

The sock considered this turn of events thoughtfully. So, if Willow couldn’t cast the spell, Buffy couldn’t bring Angel back? This might be easier than trying to halt the research, certainly now that Buffy had seen the notebook. It would have to wait and see what this “Orb of Thessulah” was like.

It hoped the Orb was fragile.

***

Willow came back to the library before they broke for dinner and patrol, carrying a bag brimful of supplies. Buffy greeted her with a huge smile, trying to cover the fact that the whole afternoon, while she and Spike had worked together to find out more about the hell dimension now that they had a name, she had felt sick. She told herself it was just that she was worried that things would go wrong, that she was nervous at the prospect of failure, but Willow’s words from the afternoon stuck with her.

_Was_ Spike her boyfriend?

Her brain kept telling her that no, Angel was her boyfriend, and Spike was her temporary-something-more-than-a-boyfriend, but Willow was probably right that that didn’t exactly make sense. So what _was_ Spike, really? She had watched him across the table, as he leafed through books and jotted down notes and occasionally said something snarky, and the more she watched him, the more confused she got.

_Could_ Spike be her boyfriend? She kept twisting the moral issues and philosophical implications around in her head, and she kept coming up empty. Spike didn’t have a soul, which she knew meant something, but she wasn’t sure what anymore, because everything she had thought went with having a soul – love and laughter and tenderness, all the things Angel had lost – Spike had in spades. And even though he still had a monster inside him, still loved the hunt and the kill when she took him with her on patrol, well, so did she, when it came right down to it, and he had been able to follow the rules Buffy had laid down for him, living off blood from the butcher and not harming humans, easily if not happily. What was it he had that made him _Spike_ and not just a slavering beast? Where did the love come from? Because, as much as she wanted to dismiss what he felt for Drusilla as not-real-love, she had spent months of nights curled in his arms, talking about everything and anything but especially Angel and Drusilla -- she _knew_ him now, and she couldn’t just wave it all away. There was something _real_ inside Spike, something capable of feelings and humor and affection, something that she liked. Something that she might even love, if she let herself.

She just didn’t get it.

She wondered if she could maybe figure it out, if she tried hard enough and long enough. Like maybe all her life.

But Willow had brought the bag of supplies, and she guessed none of her musings really mattered anyhow, because Spike was going to leave forever once he had Dru, and she would have Angel with his soul, and the details behind it wouldn’t matter so much then. She peeked into the bag. “Is this everything?”

“Yep!” Willow gave a cheery grin. “Everything except the herbs that we’ll want fresh. I have the rune stones at home still, of course, but I can bring them in tomorrow.”

“They had an Orb of Thessulah in stock, even?” Buffy wondered why she felt disappointed.

“Yeah, they had a bunch. I guess they sell really well as stocking-stuffers. They’re so shiny.”

“Want one in your Hanukkah stocking?” Buffy laughed, setting the bag of supplies out of the way, by her backpack.

“So, do we have a plan yet?” Willow sat down at the table, looking at the papers spread out in front of Spike. Spike glared at her briefly before turning back to his work.

“Not yet.” Buffy cast a furtive glance at Giles, making sure he was out of earshot. “We, um, don’t want to rush things. We need to have everything right.”

Willow followed Buffy’s glance. “Oh. Giles doesn’t know?”

Buffy grimaced. “I can’t tell him. Not with what Angel did. Once he’s back and good again, I think it’ll be all right, though.”

Willow’s face was doubtful. “If you say so.”

There was a sudden crash behind Buffy; she jumped to her feet, eyes scanning the room for a threat, but all she saw was a little pile of glass on the floor, just below the tipped-over bag of spell components. How anticlimactic.

“What the hell?” Spike bit out next to her; she glanced over to see that he was ready to fight as well, and just as frustrated as she that there was nothing to hit. They really needed to patrol tonight. Or maybe just make out. A lot.

Yeah, that would work.

“Aw, the Orb of Thessulah!” Willow pouted, leaning over to look at the shattered pile of glass. “How did that happen? I know the clerk wrapped it up really well, and it was at the very bottom of the bag.”

Buffy shrugged. “Gravity is a harsh mistress. Anyhow, can you get another one?”

“I guess. I won’t have time to go by the store for a few days, though. Is that okay?”

Buffy tried not to feel relieved, but she was. “Yeah. Yeah, whenever is fine.”

Willow fussed about cleaning up the broken glass before heading home, waving off Buffy’s offer of an escort since the sun was still up. Buffy sank into a chair across from Spike and tried to scan some more Latin, but she couldn’t concentrate.

Spike suddenly looked up at her. “Slayer, you still not wearing any knickers?” His voice was unconcerned, as if he had just asked her the time.

Buffy bit her lower lip, letting her teeth drag across the surface before answering. “No. Or yes.” She flushed, but kept her voice nonchalant. “I’m not wearing any.”

Spike nodded, then turned back to his work. “Good,” he said quietly.

Giles came over to the table then. “Spike, have you made any progress on that translation from the D’Angelo text?”

Spike rolled his eyes and handed him one of the papers. “Finished it yesterday, hardly worth my time. Already on the G’Nedd prophecies.” He glanced at Buffy, a smug look that she suspected was a little dig at the fact that he was still kicking her butt in the research department, but she grinned back at him, because she was still kicking his butt in just about every other department. Also, there was something extra-sexy about Spike looking all scholarly, with ink-stains on his fingertips.

“Ah, yes, very good.” Giles wandered back to the circulation desk.

When he was gone, Buffy leaned across the table towards Spike. “Any progress on our end?”

“Working on it,” Spike huffed. “Give us a little time.” He eyed her neckline. “You know I can see all down your shirt. Is there a national underthings shortage?”

Buffy smiled. “No. Just making a statement.”

“And that statement is…?”

“My mother is gone again tonight. She went to Sacramento for the weekend.”

“And?” He put down his pen, started to shuffle the papers into a neat stack.

“What do _you_ think?”

Spike leaned forward, mirroring her. “I think you want to scream tonight.”

Buffy just smiled.

***

The sock was feeling pretty smug as it inched its way out the library door. Smashing that glass ball had been chancy – coming out of the backpack when anybody could have seen it and raised a fuss – but it had been worth it, both because it had successfully set back the spell-working and because, as it turned out, smashing things was fun.

And it had more fun ahead of it, too. Before smashing the thingamabob, the sock had checked out the receipt tucked into the bag, which conveniently had the address of the magic shop printed on it. It would take it a couple of days, the sock judged, and there would be some disappointed children come Christmas morning, but if the sock had anything to say about it, no shiny glass balls would be sold to anyone in Sunnydale this holiday season. Especially not red-haired witches.

The sock had a Grinchy mission: to smash every Orb of Thessulah in the town.

It gleefully set forth on its quest.

***

Spike had been pissed off at first about his hand being forced, now that Buffy knew about the progress he had made on his research, but after a while he was able to shrug it off. He still could stab her in the back any time he chose. And right now, he chose to spend a luscious evening making the slayer come over and over again. He left her clothes on, just pushing her shirt and her skirt up, because that was the whole point of going without knickers, and he could always get her naked later. They had all night.

Of course, she had turned the tables on him when she had pushed him back on his cot, kissed her way down the center of his bare chest, and kissed his cock, right through the denim of his jeans. “Is this all right?” she had asked, eyes hot, and he had nodded slowly, then closed his eyes as she proceeded to nibble and mouth his cock through the denim, and for a moment he had dizzily imagined just letting her have it all, letting her slide her hot mouth over his cock, even if it meant Drusilla would cut him off for a century, and just the thought of it finished him off and he came in his jeans, swearing. Buffy had laughed gently, crawling back up him to snuggle into his neck, and he had taken her chin in his hand and kissed her deeply, wishing he could taste himself on her mouth.

They were taking a break now, hands lazily wandering over each other, Buffy nuzzling into the hollow of his throat. After a bit, she suddenly spoke, voice quiet.

“Where will you go?”

Spike didn’t pretend not to understand what she was talking about, though it was a bit of a non sequitur; there was only one thing she could mean. He shrugged, enjoying the feel of her cheek against his shoulder as it moved. “Dunno. Away.”

“Oh.” She rubbed her forehead into his neck.

“Does it matter?” He curved his hand around her breast, thumb idly stroking her sweet hard nipple.

She made a pleased sound, shifted under his hand. “No, I guess not.”

“You’ll stay here. With Angel.” He could feel his hand growing rougher at the thought, and forced himself to relax. It wasn’t going to happen anyhow. He had already decided to stab her in the back. Hadn’t he?

It was Buffy’s turn to shrug. “Yeah. Hellmouth.”

Spike rolled over her then, looking down at her, stroking her hair away from her face. “You should see the world. Travel.”

Buffy smiled up at him, shyly, though her hands were planted very _un_ shyly on his ass. “Travel sounds nice. I’ve never been out of California.” She let her legs fall open, cradling him between them.

“Whole world out there. You’ve saved it, few times. You should get to see it.” Spike could feel himself warming to the idea, picturing Buffy in a few of the places he had been. She would glow. It meant he would have to not kill her, but he pretty much already knew he wasn’t going to anyhow, no matter how many times he told himself he would. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even kill the watcher. What a fucking sap he was turning out to be.

He could still kill Angel, maybe. If the soul-spell went wrong. That would be all right. Dru would bitch about it, but it would be worth it.

Buffy sighed, smiling. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris. Maybe Italy.”

Spike snorted, shifting to the side to lean on his elbow, watching his other hand as it ran the length of her body. “Yeah, if you want to be boring.”

Buffy glared at him, blowing her bangs out of her eyes with an irritated huff. “Paris would not be boring!”

“Not boring, then,” Spike conceded with a grin. “Pedestrian. Doing what’s expected of you.”

Buffy’s eyes seemed to double in size, all teary and pleading. “But, _Paris_.” She waved a hand in the air, trying to convey the grandiosity.

Spike sighed, touching a finger to the tip of her nose. “All right then. Have it your way. You can go to Paris.” He leaned in for a kiss then, long and lascivious, mouths open and tongues sliding, and they stopped talking for a while as his hands traveled south. It had been at least ten minutes since his fingers had been inside her, and that was far too long. She was still hot and swollen and sensitive; it took hardly any time at all to make her come again, quivering against his fingertips. Fucking glorious.

Buffy was gasping and shaking, but her eyes focused on his again. “You’ve been there right? Paris?”

Spike stroked his wet fingertips across her stomach. “Well, yeah. Paris and Rome and Berlin. Prague. Moscow. Lots of little towns in between, too. There’s a lot more than just the big cities that’s worth seeing. And that’s just Europe. There’s all of Asia, and Africa, and South America. Canada. New Zealand. Hong Kong.”

Buffy smiled at that, then pouted and thumped her fist lightly on his chest. “I want to start with Paris,” she said stubbornly.

God, she was hot when she was bossy. Spike laughed indulgently and settled her more comfortably against his shoulder, sliding his arms around her. “Fine. I’ll take you to sodding Paris.”

Buffy looked at him with her big eyes, mouth trembling a bit, and he realized what he had said, and hastily backtracked. “If we don’t get them back.” That was less comforting than it might be, as close as they were to finishing their project, but it was an escape route, and he took it. 

Buffy looked up at him, face serious. “I thought you wanted me to stake you. If we don’t get Dru back.”

Was that what he had said? Of course it was what he would want, he couldn’t go on without Dru, but now, with Buffy warm and sweet in his arms… “Yeah. Yeah, I do. But… after. You can stake me after Paris.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want to.”

Spike went on, ignoring the little thrill that rushed through him at what she was saying. “You’ll like the bread there. We can eat at the best restaurants, have espresso in pretentious cafes. Eat crepes from street vendors.”

“I don’t want to stake you.” Buffy was growing agitated, and he ran a soothing hand through her hair.

“You promised, love.” She hadn’t, he knew.

Buffy knew it, too. “I didn’t. I never promised.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine. Don’t stake me. I’ll take care of it myself.” He kissed her again, because it was wonderfully sweet that she didn’t want to stake him, bleeding adorable.

The staking question resolved, Buffy got back to the Paris fantasy. “So how are we going to pay for all this food?”

_Figures she’d be all practical about it._ “Got ways.”

Buffy fixed him with a knowing, disapproving look. “You can’t steal anything. Not when you’re with me.”

“ _Bugger._ ” Spike kissed her hard. “All right. I’ll cut back on smokes for a while before we go, use the watcher’s dosh. Maybe you can get the Watcher’s Council to pay for the trip, tell them you’re taking out a nest. Probably be true, too, there’s always a nest of something in Paris, ‘cause of the sewers. Be brilliant, hunting there with you.” He drifted off a bit, imagining prowling the streets of Paris with Buffy by his side. Those French vamps were an irritating lot, anyhow. Be a favor to the evil community, taking them out.

Buffy grinned impishly up at him. “So a slay-cation?”

Spike laughed at that, shortly. “Yeah, all right. We’ll live off bread and cheese and water, blood from the butcher. Can still get the crepes. All the cafes in Paris are pretentious, so we’ll get our espresso from the _cheap_ pretentious cafes. Happy?”

“Yes.” Buffy cuddled up to him again, tracing shapes on his chest.

“Lots of things you can do in Paris cost hardly anything. We’ll go up the Eiffel Tower at night, look at all the lights, and take a boat ride on the Seine and walk by the Moulin Rouge and visit Jim Morrison’s grave. Go to the good nightclubs, the ones that aren’t fancy. Go dancing.”

“I like dancing.” Buffy’s eyes were closed.

“I know. I like watching you dance.” He remembered that first night he had seen her, happily dancing at the Bronze, while he prowled the edges of the dance floor, watching, wanting her in every possible way. “One night I’ll take you out just before dawn, fuck you under the Arc du Triomphe.”

Buffy’s eyes opened in shock, then fluttered most of the way closed. She looked up at him with the eyes of a siren. “You could f-fuck me right now.”

Spike froze. God, even stuttering, hearing those words coming from Buffy’s lips was… _god_. He wanted wanted _wanted_ , was a hair’s breadth away from begging her to help him break his vow, but he had hesitated too long, and Buffy was already withdrawing.

“Or not.” She said it like she was laughing, like she had only been kidding, and Spike felt something shift inside him. He didn’t recognize it at first, but he thought it might be guilt. Was that even possible?

He kissed her forehead, quickly. “I’m sorry, love, I…”

Buffy shrugged, smiling bravely up at him. “It’s okay. I understand. Dru.”

Spike looked down at her, at this brave, beautiful girl who was giving him everything, even when he was holding back, and he made a decision. Not _the_ decision, but a small concession, a tiny gift. “Got something else you might like, pet…” He kissed his way down her stomach, past the waistband of her skirt, spreading her thighs wide; she gasped in pleased surprise.

He hadn’t missed her subtle hints at lunch, that she wanted this, and as he stroked his tongue along her sweet wet quim, he admitted that he had wanted it just as much. Had craved it, all this time.

She tasted like heaven, like sins forgiven, a reward that he would never deserve. But _she_ deserved this, deserved all the pleasure he could bring her. Which was a lot.

He gave it all.

***

The sock surveyed the scene of destruction around it. Shattered fragments of glass littered the floor of the magic shop, glittering in the light of the streetlamps that filtered in through the blinds. Not one Orb of Thessulah remained on the shelf with the cheery sign advertising “New Age Paperweights!” The sock had checked the back room as well, nosing around the boxes of stock to ensure that there weren’t any more just waiting to be put out on the shelves. They had all been demolished.

That had been _fantastic!_ Definitely worth the two-day trek through the streets to get to the store. The sock was beginning to think it had a knack for high adventure. It was itching to hit the road, go out into the world with its mission of helping the helpless. That would kick butt!

It just had to take care of Buffy first.

The sock sighed and started its lonely trek back to the Summers residence.

 

End Chapter 7

 


	8. A Sock's Plans Unravel

Buffy opened the box Willow had brought to the library, looking at the thoroughly bubble-wrapped orb, half satisfied and half worried. “That’s so weird, how the magic store ran out of Orbs of Thessulah right after you bought one. Do you think there was a Christmas rush?” Buffy unwrapped it partway, so she could see the shiny surface.

Willow shrugged. “Maybe. The lady who runs the store now wouldn’t talk about it, just got this funny look on her face, so I’m thinking there may have been an Incident. Maybe she got a defective batch and she had to send them all back. Thank goodness for eBay!”

Buffy nodded absently, popping one of the bubbles between her fingers. “Willow,” she said suddenly, setting the box aside, glass sphere safely nestled inside, and turning to face her friend. “Do you think I’m being selfish? Trying to get Angel back, I mean.”

Willow looked uncomfortable. “Um… Well, you are trying to save him, right? From an eternity of torment? That sounds pretty unselfish to me.”

“Yes, but… Well, the Angel off in the hell dimension, it’s evil-Angel, right? He doesn’t have his soul. So is he really being tormented?”

“I don’t…”

Buffy kept on going. “I mean, his soul isn’t there, is it? His soul is off… I don’t know where it is, just not in him. Maybe it’s happy where it is, you know? Maybe it doesn’t want to go back.”

“Buffy, I…”

“Where do vampire’s souls go, anyhow?” Buffy frowned. “Do they go to heaven, or do they just hang out in some sort of limbo? And if they’re just hanging out, do they talk to each other? Like, do all the vampire souls just have some kind of party, but not a party, like they’re just killing time in the afterlife being bored, waiting to see if someone wants to put them back in their vampire body? And…”

Willow put a hand over Buffy’s mouth. “You’re rambling, Buffy.” Buffy smiled under her hand, and Willow dropped it, smiling a little self-consciously.

“I know, it’s just…” Buffy sighed.

“You’re having second thoughts.” Willow regarded her with serious eyes.

Buffy glanced quickly off to the side, where Spike and Giles were having a spirited argument about the translation of some stupid word. There was a definite twinge somewhere in the area of her chest. She tugged Willow with her and walked farther away, so Spike couldn’t possibly overhear them. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “A little.”

Willow gave her a sympathetic smile. “Because of Spike.”

Buffy’s first instinct was to deny it, but Willow had a knowing look on her face, and she guessed that the Ship of Denial had sailed long ago, leaving her stranded on the Shores of Reluctant Confession. “Yeah.”

Willow heaved a deep sigh. “Then don’t cast the spell.” She said it like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“But Spike…” Buffy swallowed back another sigh. “Spike is in love with Dru. He wants her back so much, Will. How can I tell him I want out?”

Willow rolled her eyes. “We are talking about the same Drusilla, right? The Drusilla that killed Kendra and made Giles give up the secret of Acathla? Kinda on the not-so-sane side?”

Buffy felt small. “Uh-huh.”

“And you’re okay with bringing her back into the world?”

“That was the deal,” Buffy said reluctantly. “When Spike helped me fight Angel, I promised him he could have Drusilla, that they could leave town and never come back. Willow, I barely beat Angel _with_ Spike’s help. Without him, I… Well, I wouldn’t even be around to welcome our new demon overlords. And he kept Giles alive, too, after Angel had gotten what he wanted out of him. I _promised_.”

“But you know, when they leave they’re just going to start killing again.”

Buffy knew, and it hurt. “I was thinking of asking him not to.”

Willow didn’t even answer that, just stared at her in disbelief.

“I’m crazy, aren’t I?” Buffy sighed.

“Maybe a little,” Willow admitted, then gave Buffy a quick hug. “But he has been living off blood from the butcher’s for, what, seven months now? Eight? And he hasn’t killed anyone in all that time.”

Buffy laughed, a little bitterly. “It’s not like Alcoholics Anonymous, Will. He doesn’t get a shiny medal if he makes it a year without murdering someone.”

“I guess not,” Willow said thoughtfully. “But, you know, I like to think people can change. That no matter how bad we get, we can always become better, right? That it’s never too late. Maybe vampires can change, too.”

“Without a soul?” Buffy let herself look at Spike again, watching his face. He had so many expressions, just oozing emotion. Where did the emotions come from?

Willow smiled wryly. “And you’re suddenly an expert on what a soul is, and what it does?”

“A soul is…” Buffy frowned, glaring at Willow. “A soul is a soul. It’s important.”

“Important enough that you’re going to let him go without a fight?” Willow asked, her voice gentle.

“I don’t know,” Buffy whispered.

Willow looked like she had more to say, but there was a sudden crash behind them. They all turned to look at the shattered pile of glass on the floor that once had been an Orb of Thessulah.

“I left that in the box, didn’t I?” Buffy said peevishly. “I swear it was all safe and wrapped up!” The box was lying on its side, bubble wrap scattered around it. She knelt to look at the pile of fragments.

Willow peered over her shoulder. “Well, another one bites the dust,” she sighed in resignation. She grinned then, reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I bookmarked the vendor who sold me this one. He had, like, fifty in stock, super cheap. And free shipping!”

***

The sock could have grinned when it heard that, from its hiding place under the table. Looks like the smashing wouldn’t be over for a while.

It looked forward to the next shipment.

***

Buffy thought about it, through the long days of research once school had let out for the holiday, and all through the Christmas celebrations. (She gave Spike a CD and her mom gave him a package of black t-shirts; he gave them both cheesy keychains he had obviously gotten at the local gas station one of the times they stopped on the way home from patrol, but it was the thought that counted, right? He swore up and down he hadn’t stolen them, and Buffy could tell he wasn’t lying – she had his tells down, now – so that was something. Buffy’s was a big yellow smiley-face, but he had painted little eyebrows and fangs on it with his black nail-polish, and apparently mooched her mom’s red to give it a little drip of blood, and then painted a red heart with a big black stake through it on the back. It kind of made her want to cry.)

She finally brought it up on New Year’s Eve, or really New Year’s Day, after they had gotten home from a surprisingly hot evening at the Bronze – Spike had pulled her off under the stairs a little before midnight, wrapping her in his coat so nobody could see what his fingers were doing, and he knew her body so well by now he had been able to make her come just at the end of the countdown, so she was seeing stars when everyone was celebrating and making noise all through the club, and then he had kissed her, sweet and fervent, and she had thought maybe it would be a happy new year after all.

Spike didn’t answer at first when she asked him point-blank if he was going to go back to killing as soon as he had Drusilla back, just stroking her bare shoulder and staring up at the ceiling.

“That was always the plan,” he finally said, slowly. “Leave and never come back.”

Buffy snuggled in closer. “I don’t know if I can let you go.” She tightened her arms around his stomach.

There was a long moment of silence, just his hand on her shoulder, her cheek against his chest. Finally, he sighed. “You going to alter the deal on me, then?” He didn’t sound mad, just curious, and Buffy nestled in closer.

“I don’t know. I should.” She closed her eyes, squeezing again. “I’m a terrible slayer.”

“You’re a brilliant slayer,” Spike laughed. “Got me bagging it, didn’t you? Saved the world. You’re brilliant.”

“Well, thanks for the endorsement, O William the Bloody,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll be sure to print that on my business cards.”

Spike laughed again, and she slid over on top of him, rubbing her bare chest against his. He looked up at her like… well, she didn’t know what it was like, just that it made her want him again, but at the same time made her want to just stay like this forever, just looking.

She gave a little wriggle, enjoying the way his eyes widened then dropped with desire. “Besides, you wouldn’t respect me if I didn’t at least consider staking you the moment our truce expires,” she pointed out cheekily.

Spike grinned up at her, eyes wicked. “Yeah, you’re right on that.” He slid his hands into her hair and pulled her down for a kiss.

After a bit, Buffy sat up, straddling his stomach, and looked down at him again, wondering what it looked like to him, the look on her face, because she was too full of conflicting emotions to know what she was feeling.

“Do you still want to kill me?” He stared up at her, face blank, and she hurried on to clarify. “I know you won’t, but do you _want_ to?”

His face shifted through a dozen emotions, before settling on a serious, somehow naked expression. “No, and yes.”

Buffy lifted an eyebrow, because that wasn’t a complete answer, and he knew it.

Spike pulled her down to him then, rolling over so she was on her back, his face close to hers. “Well, there’s always going to be a part of me that’s howling for blood, yeah? Part of being a vampire. I mean, I can drink pig’s blood and survive, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of me that wants to feed. Like a lion in the zoo, the instinct doesn’t go away just because it’s caged.” He bent in then, nuzzled at her throat. “When you’re close to me like this… I can sense it, feel the blood pumping through you. The scent is overpowering. Part of me wants it more than anything.”

Buffy quivered under him, but she wasn’t afraid. Why wasn’t she afraid? Shouldn’t she be afraid?

Spike shifted over her again, rubbing his nose against hers, brushing a light kiss over her lips. “But I’m not a lion, am I? Got a mind that can think, and free will. May not have a soul to feel what’s right and what’s wrong, but I can control myself, if I want to. Just like… like you can control yourself when you want a third jelly donut, but you know Giles hasn’t had one yet.”

Buffy thumped him on the chest with her fist. “I don’t howl for jelly donuts, Spike.”

Spike chuckled against her throat. “You sure about that, pet? I saw the look in your eyes this morning…” His fingers lightly wandered along her armpits, the ticklish spot.

Buffy laughed despite herself. “Stop it!”

Spike curved his hand around to her breast, catching her earlobe in his teeth. “Well, I’d use the analogy of you controlling yourself when you want my hard body, but since you _can’t_ …”

Buffy gasped in outrage. Well, fake outrage, since she thought she probably should be outraged, but seriously, how full of himself was he? “I totally can! Witness me controlling myself.” She slid out from under him and started walking towards the stairs.

Spike sighed behind her. “All right, pet, you’ve proved your point. Come back to bed.”

She turned and looked at him, half-naked and disheveled and sinful on the cot, and rushed right back. “Oh, thank god.” She curled up against him again. Spike kissed her on the forehead.

“No, I don’t _want_ to kill you,” he said after a bit. “Don’t think I could, now. World’s more interesting with you in it.”

Buffy gave him a wry look. “I am pretty sure that’s a quote from Hannibal Lector.”

Spike affected a patently fake look of surprise. “Is it? Dunno who that is, but I like the cut of his jib. Does he have a newsletter that I can subscribe to?”

Buffy glared at him, just as fakely. “You liar. I bet you’ve seen ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ like, a hundred times. Probably rooting for Buffalo Bill, too.”

Spike gently tugged her to the middle of the cot, starting to kiss down the center of her stomach. “Shows how much you know me, pet.” He eased between her legs; Buffy lay back in anticipation as he tenderly kissed the inside of her thigh. “I’m very fond of Clarice. She’s a sweet thing, can take out a serial killer in the dark without backup.” He gave Buffy a good lick, right up the middle, then lifted his head, grinning. “Got a weakness for that type.” He dipped his head down again, curling his hands around under her thighs.

Buffy stopped thinking then for a while, just enjoying the moment, because really, once Spike started in with his tongue, she couldn’t really think of anything else. She had to hand it to him, once Spike decided to cross a line, he really crossed it; since he had tossed his no-kissing-below-the-waist rule out the window, he had seized every opportunity to get his tongue on and in and all over her, and Buffy was _definitely_ not complaining. Well, maybe complaining a little, because knowing for sure how good it felt to be receiving made her really want to try giving for a change, see what noises Spike would make with her mouth on him – she thought he would probably swear; he swore a lot, whenever Buffy did something he especially liked, and for some weird reason she found it really hot – but he was the one with the stupid rules, so that was that. More oral sex for her!

A long while later, Spike prowled up the length of the cot, planting tender kisses on her skin along his path, until he was pillowed on her breast, and she cradled his head in her arms, closing her eyes for just a bit, because somehow lying back and letting Spike have his wicked way with her ladyparts was incredibly exhausting, and Spike liked to snuggle up and smugly absorb her afterglow. And she was all good with the snuggling up because, well, afterglow.

 They had barely snuggled at all though when Spike suddenly lifted his head, looking her in the eye as he asked, “Can I kill Hitler?”

Where had that come from? “What?”

Spike smiled smugly – he liked it when he had gotten her all befuddled. “Sorry, I mean _could_ I kill Hitler? If he were here?”

Buffy shifted under him, rolling her eyes. “Hitler’s been dead for decades, Spike.”

Spike shifted to lie next to her, resting on his elbow. “Speaking in hypotheticals, love. Stretch your mind a bit.” His free hand splayed out over her stomach.

What a weird vampire. But, _what the hey!_ Buffy could indulge his little what-if scenario. She frowned at the ceiling, thoughtfully. “Okay, hypothetically… Are we traveling back in time to kill Hitler? Because if that’s the case, no, because even I know you don’t mess with your own past. That way lies madness and people fading into nothingness at the school dance.”

Spike gave her the fakest set of Bambi eyes she had ever seen. “Not even to save thousands and thousands of innocent people from the Holocaust?”

Buffy glared at him. “…Damn it, Spike, don’t make me go down that rabbit hole.”

Spike laughed apologetically. “Sorry. No, not back in time. Right here, right now. There’s Hitler. Can I kill him?” He gestured vaguely across the basement.

“How did he get here?” Buffy narrowed her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” Spike replied, exasperated.

Buffy turned on her side to face him, mirroring his pose. “No, it totally does. I mean, if _he_ traveled in time, and if we kill him we change history, it’s just the same as if we went back in time. It’s hard enough to make good decisions in the present without adding in the possibility of screwing up the past.”

Spike nodded, accepting her point. “All right. No time travel. Everything in history happened the way it happened. Satisfied?” He shifted a bit closer to her, watching his hand stroke along her hip.

“I guess.” Buffy smiled, placing her hand over his.

Spike turned serious eyes up to her face. “So, can I kill him?”

Buffy made a show of looking suspicious. “How do we know it’s really Hitler? I mean, what if it’s a wannabe with a bad mustache?”

Spike let out a frustrated sigh. “You can have him complete a sodding questionnaire for all I care. Let’s just take the identity as given. It’s Hitler. Real flesh-and-blood Hitler, with all the weight of his crimes behind him, and he’s all primed to go out and kill some more. _Can. I. Kill. Him._ ” He was looking at her as if this were the most important question in the whole world, like he was asking her the meaning of life.

Buffy thought for a moment, then shrugged, giving him a little smile. “Maybe.” Spike groaned and leaned over to kiss her, hard, and she laughed. “Was that the right answer? That you can get your jollies killing the greatest mass-murderer known to history?”

Spike settled back on his elbow, looking pleased. “Killing Hitler probably wouldn’t even be all that fun. He’d be old and all gamy. That’s not the point.”

Buffy’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Because you were all gung-ho to get with the Hitler-killing just a second ago.”

Spike kissed her again, quickly. “The point is, you can think of a human being out there that might, in the grand scheme of things, be worth less than me. And if you can think of one, I bet you can think of more, yeah? Means I’m coming up in your estimation.”

“Yes, soon you shall surpass Ted Bundy in my mental ranking of villains-by-evilness,” Buffy replied.

Spike’s face was suddenly serious again. “Does that mean I can kill Ted Bundy? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

Buffy laughed incredulously. “Let me think about it.” This was quite possibly the weirdest conversation Buffy had ever had, but then Spike slid in, pressing his whole body up against hers, and kissed her like he meant it, and that was her cue not to think again for a while.

Later, just as Buffy was thinking about gathering up her clothes and heading upstairs so they could maintain the polite fiction that she was spending nights in her own bed, Spike looked her in the face, eyes serious again.

“It bothers you, me killing again. Dru.” His voice was low.

“Of course it does. I shouldn’t let you go.”

Spike looked down then, like he was ashamed – though of course he couldn’t be – and when he looked up again, the look in his eyes was… intense. Somehow resolute. “If you want me to, I’ll promise. I’ll swear, right here and now. Not to kill. Get my blood from the butcher.”

Buffy just looked at him. “You would do that? Most vampires wouldn’t be able to…”

Spike interrupted, “Yeah, well, I’m not most vampires. Not gonna pretend I’m a good guy, not ever, but, well. Never broken a promise to a lady.”

“And Dru?” Buffy couldn’t look away from him. He dropped his eyes, shrugging.

“Not sure what I can do about her. She doesn’t exactly listen to reason, you know?” He met her eyes again. “Maybe I can talk her into, you know, catch-and-release, or something like. I can’t promise she won’t ever get out. Got a will of her own, yeah? But I’ll do what I can. Make it so you don’t have to kill her.”

Buffy smiled, feeling sad all of a sudden. “Okay. Promise me.”

“Stand up,” Spike said suddenly. “Gonna do this proper.”

So Buffy stood up, and Spike fell to his knees before her, and it was like he was proposing marriage – the weirdest marriage proposal ever, with her naked and him in just a pair of black jeans, on the concrete floor of the basement – instead of promising not to kill and to try not to let his beloved kill either, but he said the words, face serious, and she looked down at him and nodded like a queen.

Then his face turned wicked again. “Do you have to go right now, love? Because…” He lifted up on his knees just enough to suggestively press his lips to her hip.

Buffy bit her lip. “Not yet,” she whispered, letting her legs slide apart.

He sealed his vow with a kiss.

***

The sock stirred briefly at the back of the laundry basket, awakened by Buffy’s moans. _Cripes, AGAIN?_ it thought grumpily, wriggling under the other socks so the sound would be a bit muffled. It was getting kind of ridiculous.

That was okay, though. It had done a fantastic job of stopping the research progress and destroying every Orb of Thessulah that had come near, and it was just a matter of time now before they gave up and realized they were perfect for each other and should just accept it, so the sock could get on with helping other helpless people. Though it didn’t mind waiting a bit; Joyce had liked that fancy French detergent so much she had kept ordering it, so the wash cycle was even better than before.

Buffy and Spike were as good as settled.

The sock curled up for another smug night’s sleep.

***

Spike once again found himself staring at a page that held information he didn’t want to know. This was getting to be a habit. A really bad habit.

School was back in session, and he was back to working in the library while Buffy was in class, and he had gotten another secret notebook going. This one he kept in the pocket of his duster at all times, so it couldn’t go wandering, his own personal notes, including things he hadn’t told Buffy about, and he had it now.

He had the ritual, the words and the components and everything. He could get Dru back. Buffy could get Angel back, if he shared it with her. He had just finished copying it neatly at the very back of the book, and all his work was done.

Spike couldn’t put it off any longer.

He had to make a choice.

 

End Chapter 8


	9. A Sock Victorious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the smutty chapter. Only one more to go after this! Enjoy!

Spike chose to put off choosing. Just for a few more weeks. The slayer’s birthday was coming up, and she was all worked up about it. After doing some figures in his head, Spike had figured out why. After receiving the jolly gift of a soulless Angel for her last birthday, she didn’t need to receive the gift of Angel – soulless or not – again this year. Really, nobody should ever receive Angel as a gift, not even at those demented gift exchanges where all the gifts were shitty and mixed up and you spent the evening trading your gift up until you had the least shitty of the shitty gifts that you could manage and then everyone shared a good hearty laugh at how shitty all the gifts were.

Angel was a really terrible gift, was the point.

He kept the notebook tucked away and continued on pretending to do research, writing down false leads in his other notebook, the one Buffy knew about. Wouldn’t do for her to figure out what Spike was up to.

Not before he had decided.

***

When the Slayer’s birthday rolled around, he played it cool. The Scoobies had wisely eschewed the surprise party this year, settling for pizza and cake and movies at Buffy’s house. There were presents (Spike privately thought his was the best; he had been pleasantly surprised to find a DVD of “Dirty Dancing” – the real one – on a rack at the convenience store where he got his smokes, and the way Buffy turned bright red when she ripped off the tissue was priceless) and threats of birthday spankings (which did not happen, but if they had Spike knew his would _definitely_ have been the best), and it all felt very strange to Spike, because it was wholesome and simple, and somewhere along the line he realized he was actually having a good time. He argued some movie trivia with the obnoxious one, had an oddly deep philosophical discussion with the werewolf, and even got teased by the redhead.

He knew all their names, but he was trying not to use them in his head. He didn’t want to get attached.

That night, Buffy appeared on the basement stairs after Joyce had retired for the night, as had become their routine, but she just stood there for a while, looking at him sitting on the edge of the cot, eyes big and somber.

“Everything all right, love?” he finally said, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah,” she said, almost absently. “Yeah, just kind of a flashback.”

Spike smiled, shaking his head. “You know, you don’t have to…”

“I know,” she said quickly, then came down the stairs, crossing the floor until she was standing right in front of him. “I know,” she repeated, curving her hand around his face, thumb grazing his cheekbone. “Can we just… can you just hold me tonight?” she said in a small voice.

Spike dipped his head in concession. “All right.” There had been other nights that they hadn’t done much of anything sexual – Buffy was still squeamish when it was that time of the month – but tonight felt different. He lay on his back, and she curled against his side, palm warm against his T-shirt, and she sighed contentedly and fell asleep almost instantly.

Spike didn’t sleep at all.

He looked at her, rubbing his thumb on her shoulder, other hand flat on top of hers, right over his unbeating heart, sometimes kissing the top of her head, and thought. He thought about Dru, his wicked princess, his salvation. He wondered if, in that far-off dimension, she had had any visions about him.

He could use a comforting vision right about now.

But he lay there in the darkness, and thought about love and loyalty, about destiny even, cradling his enemy in his arms, all through the long silent hours of the night.

By the time he felt the sun rise, a faint prickle on the back of his neck, he had made up his mind.

***

It was just a little while after her birthday that Buffy finally admitted to herself that Spike had been acting weird.

Well, technically, he always acted weird, but he was acting weird _er._ To the point where she didn’t even recognize him at times. Softer, somehow. Peaceful. It was creepy.

He spent hours with Giles, talking about the books Giles had on his shelves, and one afternoon the two of them had done some sort of weird thing with one of them, involving a huge stockpot on a hotplate and a few gallons of some stinky herbal concoction. When she asked Spike later, he shrugged and said something about burning not being enough for some books. Giles had looked patently relieved afterwards, and Buffy could swear the book stacks were better lit all of a sudden.

One night, she came down the stairs to find that the basement, which had gradually become strewn with evidence of Spike’s residency, was neat and relatively bare, Spike’s belongings heaped into a few boxes. He had shrugged again, and said he preferred it clean, which was the first she’d heard of it.

Actually, he was shrugging a lot. Any time she asked him a question.

Buffy wasn’t stupid. She could tell Spike was getting ready to leave. He must have found something, been preparing to run off with Dru when the time came. He probably didn’t trust her to let them live.

Buffy was feeling faintly murderous towards Drusilla, that was true.

She didn’t want him to go.

She couldn’t say it, though, couldn’t ask him to stay, not when he was about to get his true love back, not when she was about to renew her relationship with Angel. Her real boyfriend. What was Spike supposed to do in Sunnydale? Golf? Would they go on cheery double dates, her and Spike and Dru and Angel, maybe bowling or the arcade? It was ridiculous.

It was better for him to leave.

The replacement Orb of Thessulah arrived, and Buffy didn’t even open the box this time, just tucked the unopened box at the back of a shelf. She found the box on the floor three times, which was weird, but each time she shook it and didn’t hear any tinkling glass bits, so she assumed it was still whole.

She wondered why Spike was ready to go when they still hadn’t found the answer, but she guessed he was just being prepared. Like a Boy Scout. (The image of Spike in a Boy Scout uniform made her giggle, but in a sad way, because she still didn’t like the implications.)

He was leaving her.

She couldn’t ask him to stay.

***  
The sock was frantic.

Why why _why_ couldn’t the magic that imbued it with mobility and intelligence and so frickin’ much _soul_ have also given it some kind of _fingers_?

It was trying really, really hard to take care of the latest Orb of Thessulah, smash it up real good, but apparently it was packed in way too much bubble wrap to break as long as it was in the box, and no matter how much it tried, the sock just couldn’t get the box open. It was sealed with a single, flimsy strip of packing tape, hardly anything at all, but the sock had tried from every angle, with every possible part of its sockish anatomy, the cuff and the heel and the toe and all of the sock-bits in between, and it just couldn’t get the tiniest end of the tape up. And the knives in Giles’s collection – actually a fairly large assortment, for a library – were all too heavy for it to wield.

_And_ it knew now that Spike, the devious bastard, had been researching behind its back.

How evil was that?!

The sock watched now as Spike tucked his secret research book back into his duster. The sock had tried on several occasions to get it, but the stupid duster was always just too close to Spike’s hand for the sock to risk. Even when he was mostly naked, the duster was right there next to the bed, and the vampire had really excellent eyesight; he had sometimes narrowed his eyes in the sock’s general direction in a way that made the sock Very Paranoid Indeed.

Well, if it couldn’t destroy the components for the ritual, and it couldn’t steal or destroy or otherwise derail the research, the sock had only one recourse: Amp up the romance quotient so the two idiots would take their relationship to the next level.

The internet would save the day.

***

Spike had picked a day very carefully – a Saturday just about halfway between Buffy’s birthday and Valentine’s Day, so as not to tread on either one, because even though he had stories he could tell Buffy about St. Valentine, he got the impression that she would still stubbornly stick to some romantic interpretation, because that was exactly how she was. Stubbornly romantic in the face of evil.

It was fucking adorable.

But a decision had been made, and he was sticking to it, and all that remained were the goodbyes. Not that he was going to say “goodbye” right out; he wasn’t a complete idiot. If he let Buffy in on his plans, she would beat him up and chain him up, and then probably wouldn’t even kiss him after all that foreplay. No, Buffy couldn’t know.

He had picked a Saturday because Joyce would be home during the day but gone in the evening at an opening at the gallery – more wine and cheese – and had through careful suggestion managed to plant the idea in Joyce’s head that she needed a new dress for the occasion, and that Buffy should of course go help choose it. (He had also, in an entirely non-subtle way, planted the suggestion in Buffy’s head that she might give Joyce the slip, pick up something red at Frederick’s of Hollywood, and she had seemed intrigued, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath, as Joyce had been keeping a sharp eye on Buffy’s expenditures since the oysters. Not that he had breath to hold.)

While they were at the mall, he got things set up in the basement. He wanted things to be perfect.

One perfect night before it all ended.

He was just laying out some finishing touches when he heard the doorbell ring. After a quick check out the peephole to make sure it wasn’t a demon or, worse, a door-to-door salesman, he opened it to greet the postman.

“Got a package,” the man said, a little nervously. (Spike had gotten a good pissed-off look going on his face, in case of door-to-door salesman, and hadn’t bothered to shake it off.) “But I’m not sure if this is right. Is there a ‘Spike’ living here now?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Spike said in surprise.

The postman looked at him for a moment longer. “What happened to Joyce?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I murdered her and buried her in the basement.” When the mailman continued to just stare at him, he sighed. “Oh, for… She’s at the bloody _mall_ , you berk.”

“Oh.” The postman shook himself. “Anyhow, I need a signature.”

Spike scrawled his name on the clipboard, just SPIKE in bold, jagged capitals, and snagged the parcel, discreetly wrapped in brown paper. “This it?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s all.” The postman gave him one last nervous look before hurrying out into the sunshine.

Spike closed the door, frowning at the package. He hadn’t ordered anything off the internet – Joyce had threatened to stop buying mini-marshmallows if she saw any suspicious credit card charges – and he certainly didn’t have any friends who would have sent him a gift, even if anyone knew where he had been staying. (Actually, now that Spike thought about it, until coming to live in the Summers household he hadn’t gotten a fucking gift since he had become a vampire, and that was pretty fucking infuriating.) Maybe Buffy had ordered something for him? He ripped open the brown paper.

A VHS tape with a picture of a sinking ocean liner fell on the floor. He picked it up and frowned at the title:

_Titanic Cocks_

***

The sock watched in anticipation from its hiding place beneath the couch as Spike looked at its inspirational present, face blank with what was obviously awe and gratitude. It had had a little trouble navigating the new online bookstore, but it had finally managed to find the movie it wanted. There had been several versions, actually, so the sock had just gone for the cheapest one, hoping maybe Joyce wouldn’t notice the charge.

It had a boat on the cover. Good enough.

Spike started to laugh, and the sock wondered if it was a happy laugh or an evil laugh or somewhere in between, and just what happiness-to-evil ratio would be best for the success of its plans, but then Spike shook his head and dropped the videotape in the trashcan, stuffing the brown paper wrapping on top of it.

_In the trash!_

This was what happened when you tried to be nice to a soulless monster.

The sock grumbled to itself and started to scoot off to take a nap in the laundry basket. It was done for the day. Tomorrow it could try and figure out how to make Buffy happy with the stupid vampire of her choice. Even if he was an ungrateful jerk.

Then Spike sighed, catching the sock’s attention, and fished the videotape out of the trash, taking it downstairs. The sock followed cautiously, and saw Spike stick it in a duffel bag that had been stuffed under the cot. Which was, well, not setting it up in the VCR like the sock had hoped, but now that it had gotten a good look at the basement, it had the idea that Spike was on the same page as far as planning a romantic evening. He was probably just saving it for the appropriate moment.

The sock rubbed its ribbing together gleefully and slithered down to take up a vigil in the laundry basket.

Everything was going according to plan.

It paused, though, halfway down the stairs. Did it really need to _watch_ them? By now it was, frankly, a little tired of all the noise. It supposed the stuff they were doing felt good, since they certainly seemed to enjoy it, but from its perspective it was all just a little… odd. Uncomfortable.

Perhaps it should give them some privacy, here at the end. Then it could take one last run through the washer, for old times’ sake, and head off on a new adventure. That sounded good.

It scooted back up the stairs and found a comfy spot under the couch – that way it could watch the movie, if Spike decided to incorporate it into his evening. Such a timeless romance.

The sock soon fell asleep, dreaming of icebergs.

***

Buffy waited until the sound of her mother’s SUV was fading down the street before heading downstairs to join Spike. Honestly, one mysterious oyster dinner – nobody had ever admitted to placing the order – and suddenly she couldn’t even be trusted to order her own pizza, she had to make do with frozen. Even though she was a totally responsible adult now. She sighed as she opened the door to the basement.

And froze. The expected harsh glow of fluorescent lights was absent, replaced by a soft, warm glow, like sunlight or… _FIRE!_

Oh god, was Spike on fire?

Buffy started to run down the stairs, panicking, but about halfway down she realized that that was a ridiculous conclusion to jump to, and besides she could see candles sitting on the dryer now, which made a lot more sense than a burning vampire, given the sexy hints he’d been dropping all through dinner. She couldn’t stop her momentum though, so she stumbled to an awkward halt in the middle of the basement floor.

Spike was staring at her, frozen in the middle of lighting yet another candle on one of the storage shelves, and there was a long moment where they just looked at each other. Finally, Spike grinned, smugly, as if he knew just what she had been thinking. “Hello, pet.”

Buffy laughed as if barreling down the stairs in a wild frenzy was just the sort of thing she did every day. “Hey.” She gestured at the lit candles. “Special occasion?”

Spike shrugged. ”You’re here.” Which would have been a totally romantic thing to say if it hadn’t been accompanied by the exact same shrug he’d been giving her for weeks, any time she asked him anything important.

She folded her arms. “No, really. What’s the occasion?”

Spike looked at her steadily, then laughed, shaking his head. “Made a decision,” he said at last, walking slowly towards her, that lazy, prowling way that made her knees melt. Along with all sorts of other parts of her.

“Uh-huh.” Buffy narrowed her eyes, willing all her parts to stay non-liquidy. “And what did you decide?”

Spike didn’t answer, just kissed her, hard and possessive, sliding his hands around her waist, and that was basically it. Meltdown.

She would ask him what he had meant later.

He was starting off gentle tonight, and Buffy shivered as he slowly pulled her top over her head, because that meant that he was planning on a marathon and wanted to warm her up first. She hadn’t been able to get anything new after all, but she had changed into her red lace bra and matching panties while her mom was changing into her new dress, and Spike hummed his appreciation into her mouth, running his hands lightly along her body, down to the waistband of her leather pants, before reaching down to skin off his own T-shirt. Buffy smiled tenderly and slid her hand down his quivering stomach to stroke his hard length through his jeans.

Spike closed his eyes then, pressing his forehead against hers. “Take them off,” he said roughly.

Buffy’s hand froze on him. “What?”

“You can… You can take them off. If you want to.” His eyes opened then, the expression in them strangely vulnerable. “You can have whatever you want.”

Buffy bit her lip. “Are you sure?” She stroked him again. “I thought there were rules.”

Spike let out a little laugh of disbelief. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah, I’m sure. Bugger the rules.”

They both watched Buffy’s shaking hands as they slowly undid the buckle of his belt and popped the button of his jeans, but as Buffy slowly eased down the zipper and curled her fingers around his hard cock, his head fell back. “ _Fuck,_ ” he muttered, hands clenching at his sides.

“Too much?” Buffy whispered.

“Never,” he said fervently, dipping his head down to kiss her again as she stroked him. “But – _god!_ – if you keep that up I’m gonna…”

Buffy grinned then, diving in for a quick nip at his Adam’s apple. “Maybe you should lie down for this part,” she said, voice solicitous. Her hand tightened on him.

Somehow they made it over to the bed, wrestling his jeans and her pants off in the process, until Buffy was on top of Spike, feeling wicked in red lace, while Spike was completely naked. She looked him over, making a show of it, before sliding down so she was kneeling between his legs. He looked up at her like she was his queen as she curled her hands around his cock again, feeling his contours.

“What do you want, Spike?” she said softly, watching his face.

“Everything,” he gasped as she stroked him. “Anything. Whatever you want, love. _God_ , your hands…”

“Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully. “ _Anything_ I want?”

“Anything,” he vowed.

She leaned forward and gave the curved head of his cock an experimental lick; he groaned, clutching the sheets into knots. “Do you like that?” she said with a sweet smile.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered.

“Do you want more?” Buffy insisted, leaning forward so her warm breath washed over him.

“ _God_ , yes,” he begged. “ _Please._ ”

Buffy was tempted to tease him more, but his eyes were wild and somehow terrified, and she had mercy on him, sinking down to take his cock into her mouth.

It wasn’t what she’d expected – she hadn’t known what to expect, really, but it hadn’t been this, the feel of him between her lips; he tasted coppery, and the skin was so very smooth and soft under her tongue. She tried nibbling down the sides, licking up from the base, swirling her tongue around the swollen tip, and through it all Spike swore and pleaded and sobbed, and she loved it, that she had brought him to the edge of hysteria just with her mouth.

She knew just how he felt.

She slid one of her hands over to his, and he clutched at it, weaving his fingers into hers; she kept the other loosely curved around the base of his cock, stroking gently as she looked up at him. He met her eyes with a look of total adoration. “Tell me what you want,” she said softly, letting her lips just barely brush the tip of his cock as she spoke.

He laughed brokenly. “Am I supposed to be able to talk, kitten?” His voice was slurred, as if he were drunk.

Buffy blew on him, grinning when his cock jerked. “Yes,” she said. “Tell me.”

Spike swore, a stream of curse words that ended with, “Lick me, pet. _God_ , your tongue…” His voice cut off when Buffy gave him a long, firm lick, all the way from base to tip. Then another. On the third lick, she added a little flick of her tongue, just at the end. His hand gripped hers convulsively,

“Now what?” Buffy said, taking just the tip into her mouth for a moment, because she wanted to.

Spike just laughed. Buffy loved the sound of his laughter. She started laughing too, she couldn’t help it, and she took him into her mouth as far as she could go while she was still chuckling. His back arched, and he swore again through his laughter.

“ _God,_ Buffy, I’m going to…”

Buffy sucked as hard as she could, and he shouted, and she felt his cock quiver and jolt between her lips, and then she was surprised into choked laughter when he came in her mouth – not surprised that it happened, but surprised because she hadn’t known how it would feel, and now she knew, it felt like power, but also a little weird, unexpected, the taste and the sensation, and her mouth was dripping as she laughed and he took her by the arms and dragged her up and kissed her, sliding his tongue against hers and kissing her lips and her chin and her cheeks, until she was clean, and he rolled her over, so she was up against the wall, kissing down her neck, and then she was under him and he was looking down at her, face triumphant and worshipful.

“My turn,” he growled, and slid down her body, hooking his hands behind her knees and spreading her wide, and she nearly screamed when his tongue touched her swollen clit through the lace of her panties. He licked her hard, then gently, tongue delving deep into her and swirling around her folds, and occasionally slipping lower to tease at – she couldn’t even think it, but it all felt so good, she nearly wept as she came, sharp and brilliant. Spike sat back on his heels long enough to tug her panties down her legs and toss them behind him, then gently turned her sideways on the cot, tucking the pillow behind her so she was half-propped against the wall and her crotch was right at the edge of the thin mattress, then sank to his knees beside the low bed, curved his arms around her thighs and licked hard, all the way from back to front, eyes locked on hers the whole time. She managed to free one hand from clutching the mattress to stroke the hair back from his face, run a gentle hand along his cheekbone, and he laughed against her and somehow captured both of her hands in his, pressing them into the mattress beside her hips as she arched to meet his mouth and his tongue and – _oh god!_ – his teeth, just barely grazing her where she was most sensitive, and she came again, and this time she did scream, she didn’t bother holding it back because she knew Spike loved it as much as she did.

She was quivering and trembling and couldn’t quite work her legs, but Spike slid up again, kissing her tenderly, and tugged her arms and legs around until they were lying together, his elbows on either side of her head as he looked down, and he was sliding his hard bare cock against her, gliding easily through all her wetness.

“Can I fuck you, Buffy?” he asked in a low voice. His eyes were deadly serious.

She looked up at him, feeling just as serious, and nodded. “Now, Spike,” she whispered urgently, and he didn’t wait any longer, just slid a hand between them to adjust his position, and then he was inside her, and it was perfect.

He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes closed, as he began to rock against her, and she managed to convince her thighs to work well enough to wrap her legs around his waist, and he grinned, pumping harder.

Oh, god, she hadn’t known, she hadn’t _known_ , or she would have demanded he break his rules on the very first day, begged and pleaded until he gave her what she wanted, because she hadn’t known how it would feel, his delicious cock sliding through her, deeper and deeper, until it almost hurt, but the best pain ever, and he was swearing into her lips, half-kissing but not quite, like he couldn’t quite coordinate it all, and he suddenly slipped his hand down between them, pressing his thumb hard on her clit while he slid in and out, delving his tongue deep into her mouth, and another orgasm took her by surprise; she gasped against his tongue, sucking on it reflexively, and he thrust and thrust and thrust as she clenched about him, and just as she was coming down he jerked his head back and she felt him jolting inside her, and she smiled up at him and he smiled down at her as they both eased into sweet lethargy.

They lay there for a few minutes, limbs still tangled; he was still mostly hard inside her, and he pulsed slowly, miniscule thrusts as he kissed her eyelids and her earlobes and her shoulder, and after a while she felt the tension building again, and she rolled him over so he was on his back and she was sitting up, knees tucked in against his ribcage, toes curling slightly under his ass. She rocked against him, watching his face.

She was still wearing her lace bra, and she took his hands in hers and set them on her breasts as she rocked and rocked, his thumbs rubbing the rough lace against her tender nipples. His eyes flared as she reached around behind her to undo the clasp, and he helped her slide the straps over her arms until she could toss it aside, and then he slid his hands up to cup her bare breasts, letting her nipples pop out between his fingers, and he pinched and kneaded, eyes locked on hers as he reared up to give each nipple a flick of his tongue. Buffy bit her lip, whimpering at the way his cock surged inside her with the movement, shifting into a new, succulent angle.

“More,” Buffy said, though she didn’t recognize her own voice, and then he had his arm around her waist, free hand on her breast, tipping her nipple up for him to suck and lick and – _god!_ – nibble, until she was mewling into his hair, clutching his head to her. He chuckled against her – the vibrations ran right through – and switched to the other breast, sucking intensely. He was all the way hard again now, and Buffy felt her subtle rocks turning into needy thrusts, until she finally shoved him back on the cot and threw her head back as she rode and rode, and he slid his thumbs into her center, spreading her folds wide and rubbing against her clit as she moved, both thumbs together, and she arched back and came, screaming except no sound came out but a harsh gasp, and she collapsed on his chest.

He was still rock hard inside her, taking little sharp thrusts that made her shake, and she lifted her head and kissed him as he slid easily inside her. “More,” she said again, and he kissed her hard and sat up, pressing her back until she was laid out over his knees. Which was again different, but delicious, the way he angled inside her.

“How do you want it, love?” he asked in a raspy voice, running a possessive hand all the way from her breast down to her knee, still moving inside her, tiny hard pulses that made her eyes roll back in her head.

She laughed breathily up at him, and tried to think, and finally gasped out, “Number three.”

“A fine choice,” he grinned, and wrapped his arms around her and heaved her up, and for a moment they were separated – she couldn’t help but whimper, just a bit, at the sudden emptiness – and then her face was nestled in his thin pillow and her rear end was in the air and his knees were between hers, wedging them wide open, and then his hands were on her ass, caressing and then spreading, and then his cock was sliding into her again from behind, his hands pulling her hips back hard to meet him.

“Is this good?” he asked roughly, thrusting hard, and she nodded against the pillow. He was deeper like this, deeper than she had imagined he could be, gliding easily in and out of her; she squeezed around him and they both cried out together at the increased friction.

“Harder,” she demanded, and he gasped out a laugh and gave her harder; she tilted her hips up to meet him, sliding one hand down to press against her clit, and he slid his thumbs into the crack of her ass at the same time, and she came again, nearly ripping the pillow apart in her other hand.

Spike slowed for just a bit, placing a tender kiss just between her shoulder blades, smoothing her tangled hair over her neck. “Buffy,” he whispered against her spine, and she shivered.

Then his hand was over hers, between her legs, and he was fucking her hard, his finger next to hers on her clit, and there went another orgasm, like an electric shock, and then another, and he was swearing again, naughty words spilling from his mouth like a waterfall – at least the ones she could recognize were naughty, and she assumed the rest of them were naughty and British – and he pressed his hand into her belly and shuddered inside her, collapsing over her back for a moment, before oozing around until she was on top again, slick and sweaty and shivering, and he tipped her mouth to his for a tender kiss, lips clinging to hers sweetly.

When Buffy could breathe again, she said, “Wow.” Which was not especially eloquent, she supposed, but Spike should be happy she remembered words at all.

And he seemed to be, hugging her tightly. “Yeah,” he replied.

Buffy felt vaguely embarrassed, because she was all wet with his spendings and hers, but Spike didn’t seem to mind; actually, he seemed fascinated, sliding his hands through their mess and smearing it all over her, and then he slid down her body and started to lick her, everywhere, and she thought maybe she was supposed to feel more embarrassed at that, but she just smiled contentedly and lay back and enjoyed it. Especially the part where he found her clit, lapped tenderly at it until she came again, a sweet sigh of an orgasm, and finally he eased back up to take her in his arms. They lay there for a long while, letting the candlelight play over them as they indulged in light caresses and spare, clinging kisses.

“Tired, love?” he said eventually.

Buffy tipped her head up, lifting a challenging eyebrow. “What do you think?”

“I think…” Spike slid a hand down, testing. “ _God_. I think you want more.”

“Good answer,” Buffy grinned, pushing him onto his back. “Number twelve?” she asked, cupping his cheek in her hand.

He nuzzled into her palm. “All right,” he said offhandedly, eyes heavy-lidded, hands curling around her thighs. She smiled down at him in victory.

Buffy had really wanted to try Number Twelve.

***

Spike let himself stay until Buffy was asleep, his arms tight around her, hands stroking her hair and her smooth bare back, but when she was finally out, faintly snoring in that way he thought was adorable but she would probably be embarrassed about if he told her, he cautiously eased out from under her, gently lowering her head to the pillow, and pulled on his clothes in the darkness.

It didn’t take him long to pack, just throw his stuff in his duffel bag – clothes, extra packs of cigarettes, the Sex Pistols CD, a few odds and ends – and he knew he couldn’t stick around, he needed the whole rest of the night. But he knelt beside the cot one last time, stroking Buffy’s hair back from her face, just watching her sleep in the dim shadows of the night for a few last moments. Finally he kissed her on the forehead, set his note on the pillow beside her, and slung on his duster.

Shouldering his duffel bag, he headed up the stairs.

He didn’t look back.

 

End Chapter 9


	10. A Sock Moves On

The sock woke up at the sounds of the basement door opening and closing, and it happily scooted out so it could get a better view of the TV. Movie time!

Except instead of coming over to the VCR and popping in the tearjerker romance, Spike headed into the kitchen and out the back door. He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and his duster on, and the sock realized in horror that Spike was _leaving_. The door closed behind him, his platinum hair just visible through the square glass panes of the window.

The sock quivered in panic. Where was Buffy? She had to stop him from leaving!

It slithered as quickly as it could to the basement door, leaping up at the doorknob over and over again until it finally managed to gain purchase on the slippery brass and turn the knob, dangling from it as the door swung open. It dropped to the floor and wriggled quickly down the stairs.

There she was! How could she sleep at a time like this? Wasn’t she supposed to be a hyper-vigilant champion keeping the forces of evil from ruining the world? Spike was upstairs right now, ruining her love life and thus the sock’s world with his evil leaving-through-the-back-door, and she was asleep on the job!

The sock set about waking her up.

Unfortunately, it soon realized that Buffy was either completely exhausted or the deepest sleeper of all time, because waking her up was not working at _all_. It started by nudging her shoulder, over and over, escalating the pressure until it was slapping against her bicep, but she only wriggled into a more comfortable position, snoring faintly. The sock tried tugging the light blanket off her, thinking the cold might awaken her – the basement was definitely cooler in the winter – but she merely grumbled in her sleep and tugged the blanket right back up over her shoulders. It even took a huge chance, slithering over in front of her face and slapping lightly at her cheek, but she merely furrowed her brow and brushed at the sock like it was an annoying fly.

How long had it been? How far had Spike gone?

The sock frantically surveyed the basement. Noise! It could make noise! It launched itself at the dangling manacles – the long chains had been looped up out of the way – and it swung on the links as vigorously as it could, so that they clanked together.

Buffy just smiled, as if she were dreaming of something pleasant.

It frantically wriggled over to the abandoned boom box, poking its cuff frantically at the buttons over and over, but the radio wouldn’t turn on, and the sock finally realized that the batteries were dead. Stupid Spike and his stupid punk music CD! The boom box should have had a plug, but now that the sock thought about it, it remembered that it had left it upstairs in Buffy’s room because it was too much hassle to have it dragging behind – moving the boom box had been hard enough – and there just wasn’t time to go all the way back upstairs to get it now.

The sock knocked all the extinguished candle stubs off the shelves and the dryer, but the faint thuds of wax against concrete didn’t even seem to register with Buffy. It turned the dryer on, but then it realized that the sound was actually pretty soothing, which was surely counterproductive, so it twisted at the knob again until the dryer turned off.

The sock cursed its weakness, its lack of a voice, the snail-like speed that made each new attempt at waking Buffy up take so long that Spike had surely walked another mile, maybe two in the time it took for each failure. It had to have been trying for _hours_. The tiny, high windows were already glowing with the light of early morning. And now it was out of ideas. It desperately wriggled up onto the shelves, hoping that maybe there was something it could use in the boxes of Christmas decorations. Didn’t Christmas involve bells? It tugged mightily on the corner of the box to shift it into a better position to open the lid.

The much abused shelf, weakened from battles and sexual antics, groaned under the shifted weight and collapsed with a crash of shattered glass and ringing jingle bells. The sock found itself buried in a heap of tinsel and tangled lights.

“Spike?”

Buffy’s voice was sleepy, and the sock could have wept. She was awake!

Then it frowned to itself. Now it was trapped in a pile of holiday wreckage.

It started digging itself out.

***

Startled awake, Buffy blinked drowsily at the dim basement, sleep-addled brain slowly taking in the collapsed shelf, the candles on the floor, the complete lack of Spike, the folded note on the pillow…

_Oh, god._

She snatched up the note, breathing fast. A small bound journal was underneath it. Oh god oh god oh god she wasn’t _ready_ , she didn’t want him to go back to Drusilla, not yet, not when she had made up her own mind that… She unfolded the note, hands shaking.

The note was written on a sheet of Giles’s crisp formal stationery in bold block printing, with words scribbled and crossed out here and there.  Buffy scanned the note quickly, then went back and read it again, slowly taking it in, feeling her lower lip trembling but not able to do anything about it.

 

_~~Slay~~ Buffy,_

_I’ve decided to leave Dru where she is. Can’t imagine a better life for her than spending millennia worshipped as a hell goddess. She has a whole dimension of minions to care for her now, doesn’t need her Spike anymore._

_~~I lo~~ _

_The notebook has everything you need to get Angel back. Yeah, I’ve been lying to you all along. Evil. ~~I lov~~ I hope you’re very happy together. Well, I hope you’re happy. Don’t give a fuck about Angel. Punch him in the nose from me._

_Tell Joyce thanks for the hot chocolate and… and everything, and tell Giles that he needs to get that book with the red binding under lock and key. He’ll know the one._

_~~I love y~~    ~~I lo~~   ~~I~~_

_Bugger this. I love you._

_Not telling you where I’m going, but I won’t forget my promise. Don’t have to worry about me._

_Good luck._

_Spike_

 

Buffy sat limply on the edge of the cot, mind racing. He didn’t want Drusilla back? When had that happened? How could he…

_Oh, god_. He thought she still wanted Angel. He was stepping aside so that she could have her happy ending. Except… she didn’t want that ending anymore. She had loved Angel, of course she had, with all her heart, but her heart had been broken, and Spike had helped her glue it back together, and now it wasn’t the same anymore – nothing ever was after it had been shattered, no matter how careful you were at putting the pieces back – and now her love for Angel… didn’t fit. Her mended heart had already been filled up.

She was in love with Spike.

Buffy jumped to her feet. She had to find him. She had to find him, so she could punch him in the nose, because he was a total idiot, leaving without even asking her how she felt. And after she punched him she was going to kiss him until he realized what an idiot he was and agreed to come back where he belonged.

She had to find him.

Where would he go?

She could hear the faint sounds of her mom moving around in the kitchen upstairs, and her heart lifted. Her mom had come home late, and she always got up early on Sundays, even after late nights, so she could go to her book club. Maybe she had seen him, could give Buffy some sort of clue as to where to start looking, since Spike had been all stupidly self-sacrificing and mysterious about where he was headed. The jerk. She grabbed clean jammies out of the laundry basket and dressed at top speed, quickly gathering her scattered clothing (though she couldn’t find her panties) and the soiled linens and shoving it all into a corner, just in case her mom came down later, and took the stairs two at a time, bursting out into the kitchen.

“Mom! Mom, have you seen…”

And there he was, sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, hands wrapped around a mug of steaming hot chocolate, eyes going straight to hers. He had enough grace, or at least self-preservation instinct, to look abashed.

“...Spike.”

Joyce looked up from her juicer. “Buffy, did something fall in the basement? I heard a crash.”

“Uh, yeah. One of the shelves collapsed.” She couldn’t stop staring at Spike.

“What were you doing down there?” Joyce’s face clearly said she had an excellent idea why Buffy might be downstairs in Spike’s domain early in the morning, but was happy to accept any excuse so that she could continue to pretend she didn’t know.

“I went down to, um, talk to Spike. But he wasn’t there. Because he was here. Why are you here?” She directed that last bit at Spike, and he looked down at his chocolate, poking at a marshmallow.

Joyce rolled her eyes. “Of course he’s here, Buffy. He’s been living here since last May. Where else would he be?”

Buffy had no answer for that.

Joyce went on, handing Buffy a glass of juice. “So, Spike was telling me that the Watcher’s Council is thinking of sending you to Paris? On a mission?”

Spike took another sip of his hot chocolate, trying but utterly failing to look innocent. Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe.”

“How wonderful! You know, I’m not all that happy about this slayer business, but at least you’re getting some cultural opportunities out of it. You’ll have to go to the Louvre. They have a wonderful collection of Egyptian artifacts.”

“I promised Buffy I’d show her around,” Spike said affably. “Eiffel Tower. Moulin Rouge.” His eyebrows lifted as he looked at Buffy over the rim of his mug. “Arc du Triomphe.”

_Oh, god._

“Mom, shouldn’t you be leaving for your book club?” Buffy said quickly, drinking her juice down. She was going to need the vitamins.

Joyce glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Oh, I have a good fifteen minutes before I have to go.” She busied herself wiping the counters.

Spike took another hearty drink of his hot chocolate, tongue darting out to lick off the mustache.

Buffy sighed and drank another glass of juice.

***

The sock wriggled up the stairs, leaving a trail of tinsel strands behind it. It wondered how long it would take Buffy to track Spike down – he must have gotten to the city limits by now, might even be in Los Angeles if he had stolen a car – and sighed, rounding the corner into the kitchen.

Oh. Well, that had been fast.

_Guess that’s why she’s the Chosen One_ , it thought happily.

The sock wriggled up into the hanging basket that held potatoes, to get a better view.

While it was watching, Joyce stood up and rinsed her mug in the sink. “I’ll be back around three,” she said pointedly. “I have a lunch meeting with a new artist after book club, and I need to go by the grocery store after.”

Buffy just nodded, and her mom snagged her car keys off the rack and headed out the door, sighing.

The second the door closed behind her, Buffy stomped over to Spike and gave him a shove; he nearly fell off his stool, starting to laugh. The sock rubbed its ribbing together in anticipation. This was going to be good.

Buffy folded her arms, face settling into a pout. “You’re still here. I thought… I thought you’d be gone by now. In Mexico or somewhere.” She looked angry, but her lips had started to quirk up into a smile.

Spike stood up, turning to face her. “Funny thing, pet. Turns out I’m not all that altruistic.”

Buffy just cocked an eyebrow; Spike sighed and went on. “Look, the way I see it is, you cast that spell, bring Angel back, you’re not going to be able to time it so the soul just pops into him the second he arrives in Sunnydale, yeah? He’s going to be evil, and he’s going to be mightily pissed off, and you’re gonna have to restrain him while the witch tries to suit him up with his shiny white hat. Be a pretty terrible ally, to abandon you in a situation like that. Figure I’d better stick around, make sure things go right, there.”

He started to pace, gesturing sharply. “Then, what happens if the soul-thing doesn’t work out? Already tried it once, way I hear, and it slid right off. So then you’ve got Angel, big and bad and back in the world, and the only thing you can do at that point is kill him, right? I’m telling you now, if there’s any killing of Angel going down, I’ll want to be here for that. Don’t want you to have to do that again.

“But let’s say you do get him back, stick that soul right into him, he’s back to his old brooding self again.” Spike stopped pacing, turned to glare at Buffy. “See, pet, that’s where it gets interesting. Hard for me to fight him when he’s not here. Not talking hitting him over the head – though, yeah, physical presence also a requirement for that – but fighting him inside you. Can’t drive out a memory. Can’t conquer a dream. But you get him back? That’s when things get real.”

He stalked up to Buffy, standing right in front of her, fists clenched at his sides. “Go. Cast the spell. Get Angel back. Give him his soul. Make him everything you ever wanted him to be. Everything I’m not.”

He leaned in so his face was inches away from hers. “I’ll slip in and fucking _win_ you. Right under his sodding nose.”

The sock wanted to cheer.

Spike folded his arms then to mirror Buffy, head tilted back, eyes resolute. “I’m not giving up, Buffy. I’m going to stay, and I’m going to court you, and seduce you, and reason with you and argue with you and look at you like a bleeding puppy dog if I have to. I’m gonna do good works and fight by your side and _prove_ that I’m sodding well the better man, soul or not, and in the end _you’re going to choose me_.”

Buffy just looked at him, silent moments stretching out. The sock could swear it saw sparks snapping in the air. “Nice speech,” Buffy said finally.

Spike let out a huge sigh. “Thanks.”

“Are you done?” She raised her eyebrows.

Spike tilted his head pensively. “Yeah, think so.”

Buffy nodded slowly, looking down at the ground, then took a step closer. “Just checking.” The next second, she launched herself at Spike, snaking her arms around his neck, kissing him like she was starving. Spike wrapped his arms around her waist, heaving her up onto one of the stools and stepping between her thighs, devouring her right back.

The sock sighed. This was going to take a while.

It curled up for another nap.

***

Buffy could feel tears coming out of her eyes, she couldn’t stop them, and when she and Spike finally came up for air – for her, at least – he brought his thumbs up to her cheeks, brushing the drops away.

“So,” Spike said gently, kissing her nose. “What’s going on, then?”

Buffy sniffed. “You’re an asshole.”

Spike laughed against her. “Yeah. So?”

She put her hands on his chest, looking at them, then back up at his eyes. “I don’t want you to go.”

He shrugged. “Just said I’m not going.” His hands clasped together in the small of her back.

“But you did go,” Buffy said, suddenly fiercely angry, hands curling into fists against him. She gave him a good thump.

“Yeah.” Spike sighed gustily. “Came back.”

 Buffy narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “So, how far did you make it?”

He looked away, laughing faintly, then back, shrugging one shoulder. “Back porch. Breathed in the night air, and realized it wasn’t the same any more, walking in the dark alone. Sat out there until sunrise to see if anything changed, but it didn’t. Joyce came down about then, and that was that.”

“So you stayed for Mom’s hot chocolate?” Buffy teased.

Spike laughed shortly, looking down. After a long pause, he shrugged one shoulder again. “Did you read it?” His voice was light, but it shook, just barely. He released his hands, sliding them around to rest on her hips.

“Your note?” Buffy smiled faintly.

“Yeah.” He had a sullen look on his face now, lower lip set stubbornly.

“Yeah. I read it.”

Spike toyed with the bottom button of her pajama top. “And?”

“And you’re an asshole,” Buffy pouted, thumping his chest again. “I can’t believe you would do that to me. You could at least have asked me what I wanted before you put me through that. You’re a big, fat, stupid jerk.” She slid her hands up to cup his cheeks, shaking him gently until he lifted startled eyes to hers. “And I love you, too.”

He groaned and kissed her hard, hands dipping under her pajama top to stroke the bare skin of her back.

At Buffy’s next oxygen break, he looked at her seriously. “So, are you still going to bring Angel back?”

Buffy lifted her eyebrows. “I wasn’t planning on it. I think without his soul, he’s probably pretty happy where he is, like Dru. And his soul… well, there’s no way of knowing where it is, and I think that’s probably okay.”

Spike looked mildly disappointed. “All right, then.”

Buffy looked at him askance. “Don’t tell me you were hoping I would bring him back after all, just so you could rub it in.”

Spike grinned fiercely. “Maybe.”

“You’re awful.”

“But you love me,” he said, eyes wary.

“Yes,” Buffy said, looking him right in the eye. “I love you.”

He smiled then, boyishly. “I love you, too.” He started to lean in for another kiss.

“ _But_ ,” Buffy said quickly, placing her hand over his mouth. “I also know you. So if you’re sticking around for good – you are sticking around for good, right?” He nodded sharply, pressing a kiss to her palm. “If you’re going to stay, we need to have some ground rules.” She lowered her hand.

“Thought we were done with sodding rules,” Spike grumbled. He looked like a twelve-year-old who had been told he couldn’t skateboard in the mall.

“Not those kinds of rules,” Buffy said softly. “Not… not bedroom rules.” She ran her hand along his chest, loving how he twitched under her hand. “We’ve gotten pretty good at negotiating those on the fly. I mean, rules for the rest of the time.”

“Made you a promise, love. Promise still stands.”

“You did. And I know you’ll keep it.” She narrowed her eyes. “I _also_ know that your promise was very carefully worded, so that you could still keep on doing mostly what you wanted, as long as nobody died.”

Spike grinned in acknowledgment. “Got me there.”

“So. Let’s figure this out right now. Get it over with.”

“All right,” Spike shrugged, and they started in on the negotiation.

Half an hour later, they had come to agreement on most issues. Spike had made a large number of concessions related to felonies and misdemeanors, and Buffy had in turn agreed to allow Spike more freedom now that he wasn’t her prisoner, and also to try the manacles at least once. Buffy sighed contentedly, then fixed Spike with a gimlet gaze.

“Now. About biting people.”

“Already promised not to kill humans, love,” Spike pointed out. “Except Hitler. You said I could kill Hitler, and maybe Ted Bundy.”

“You also once told me about – how did you put it? – ‘catch and release.’”

“Oh, you caught that, did you?” Spike sounded disappointed.

“So. No biting, period.”

Spike pouted. “Not even if it’s a very bad man that we’re grilling for information on how to stop the next apocalypse but he won’t talk and the fate of the world is hanging in the balance?” He blinked at her in faux innocence.

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Thought about this a lot, have you?”

“Maybe a little.”

“All right, then,” Buffy conceded. “There is a _slight_ chance that I _may_ allow you to bite someone, in a situation of dire need and world-saveage. But no biting without my express, specific, freely given permission. Possibly in writing.”

“Sounds good to me, pet.” He suddenly scooped his hands under her pajama top, cupping her bare breasts. “Just so you know, though, vampires’ bites don’t have to hurt.” He slid one hand down into her pants, teasing. “Been told it can be very… _exciting_.”

Buffy shook, and slid her own hands down to unbuckle Spike’s belt. He started to pant, groaning as she released his cock, taking it in her hand. “Spike?”

“Yes, love?”

Buffy’s hand tightened around Spike’s cock. “So help me, if you ever bite me – if you so much as _nick_ me with your fangs…” She pressed close to him, lips brushing against his as he quivered, obviously having no trouble imagining the dire consequences she was implying. Possibly more dire than she was even thinking. Later on, she might reconsider the biting thing, now that he’d gotten her curious, but right now, she needed to show him who was boss. “And believe me, I won’t even need to use my _hands_.” He could be the boss next time.

Spike’s eyes rolled back in his head in ecstasy. “ _Fuck._ ”

Buffy grinned wickedly. “Don’t mind if I do.”

***

The sock woke up when Buffy and Spike stumbled against the hanging baskets as they groped and wrestled their way out of the kitchen, stopping to kiss madly against the door to the basement. The sock watched indulgently as Spike kissed his way down Buffy’s throat, fumbling at the doorknob until Buffy’s hand stopped him.

“Not the basement,” she said in a low voice. “My room. Bigger bed.”

Spike groaned, kissing her hard. “Window, love. Sunlight.”

Buffy hiked herself up, wrapping her legs around his waist. “Don’t stop. I – _oh!_ – I put in blackout drapes two weeks ago. That day you and Giles were doing the thing.”

“For me?” he whispered into her chest.

“Just for you,” Buffy confirmed. She rolled her body against his. “So take me upstairs and fuck me.” She kissed the top of his head. “I want to try Number Seventeen.”

Spike swore softly into her breasts. “ _God_ , I love you.”

“I know,” Buffy gasped into his hair, yanking at his shirt, and then somehow Spike managed to stagger up the stairs to the second floor, hiking Buffy up over his shoulder along the way. The sock felt its ribbing expand in indulgent pride as their mingled laughter and groans were cut off by the slamming of Buffy’s bedroom door.

_Mission accomplished_.

The sock was not taking any chances, though; it slithered down the stairs and slowly dragged Spike’s notebook up to the first floor, one riser at a time, secure in the belief that Spike and Buffy would be occupied for hours. Though it did get a little bit concerned when it made it back up to the first floor, because the walls were shaking. It hoped the contractors hadn’t skimped on the materials when building the house.

Perhaps they should move Buffy’s bigger bed down to the basement, for their own safety.

The sock considered leaving a note to that effect, but finally just shrugged its ribbing. It had done all the hard work of getting them together. They could manage the rest of it on their own.

It dragged the notebook out to the trashcan by the curb, gleefully dropping it on top of the kitchen refuse and brushing its toe and heel together in satisfaction. Good riddance.

It headed back up to the porch, sighing a bit at the loud noises coming from upstairs. They had left Buffy’s window open, for some strange reason, and while the sock had considered going back in to make sure things were going all right up there, it could pretty much tell from here that Buffy was having the time of her life.

The whole neighborhood could probably tell, in fact.

No need to say goodbye, the sock decided. No need to seek thanks. From the shadows it had worked its magic, and to the shadows it would return, to find another worthy person in need of its unique professional assistance. It turned to go.

But as it inched its way down the sidewalk, the sock hesitated. Was its work here truly done? Could Buffy, the bearer of a sacred duty to vanquish the forces of darkness, and Spike, a soulless vampire, truly find happiness together? Could Spike resist the temptation to return to his evil ways? Would their relationship be able to weather the trials of time? Would their relationship be truly accepted by the Scoobies? Would they ever agree on who had to fold the laundry? Suddenly the sock wished for some sort of sign to let it know that it had done right by its beloved Buffy. Maybe a pat of confirmation. A letter of recommendation. Even a kindly glance and a gentle murmur of, “That’ll do, sock. That’ll do.”

All the sock asked for was a sign.

Buffy’s voice trailed down from the open window, harsh with ecstasy. “YES! Oh, god, YES!”

The sock shrugged its cuff. _Well, okay then._

The Sock with a Soul, helper of the helpless, slithered off into the night. Well, day. Alone again, naturally.

 

THE END

 

Author’s Notes:

Well, that ended up completely unlike what I expected this fic to be. Thanks to all of you for joining me on this surreal journey!

This story has less music involved than my other fics, so no playlist, but there is a closing theme song: “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O’Sullivan, which is quite possibly the most depressing song of all time. It can be found, among other places, on the soundtrack for _Megamind_ , and on the theme song collections for the anime _Maison Ikkoku_.

There will be further adventures of the Sock with a Soul, eventually, but I feel the need to give my other neglected WIPs a little love for a while.

Many, many thanks to my incredible and inspirational beta the_moonmoth; to feliciacraft for the initial inspiration and restfield for further evil influence; to pfeifferpack, who made me a kickass banner; and to Seasonal Spuffy for providing a reason to go down this twisty, demented path and a deadline to make me hustle along said path. This was my NaNoWriMo project – I could not start until November 2nd due to other commitments – and I am happy to say I made my word count well ahead of schedule.

Please do check out my other fics – if you enjoyed this there is a good chance you will also enjoy my current WIPs “Prisoners of Love, Blue Skies Above” and “Summer of (Hobo) Love.” (I considered calling this fic “Sock of Love” to keep my titles consistent, but that just… wasn’t a good image.) (And I once thought there was no joke too low for me…)

 

 

 

 


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